Bread soup
was placed upon the table. "Ah," said the Herr Rat,
leaning
upon the
table as he peered into the tureen, "that is what I need.
My
'magen'
has not been in order for several days. Bread soup, and just
the
right
consistency. I am a good cook myself"--he turned to me.

"How
interesting," I said, attempting to infuse just the right amount
of
enthusiasm
into my voice.

"Oh
yes--when one is not married it is necessary. As for me, I have
had
all I
wanted from women without marriage." He tucked his napkin
into his
collar and
blew upon his soup as he spoke. "Now at nine o'clock I
make
myself an
English breakfast, but not much. Four slices of bread, two
eggs,
two slices
of cold ham, one plate of soup, two cups of tea--that is nothing
to you."

He
asserted the fact so vehemently that I had not the courage to refute
it.

All eyes
were suddenly turned upon me. I felt I was bearing the burden
of
the
nation's preposterous breakfast--I who drank a cup of coffee while
buttoning
my blouse in the morning.

"Nothing
at all," cried Herr Hoffmann from Berlin. "Ach, when
I was in
England in
the morning I used to eat."

He turned
up his eyes and his moustache, wiping the soup drippings from his
coat and
waistcoat.

"Do
they really eat so much?" asked Fraulein Stiegelauer.
"Soup and
baker's
bread and pig's flesh, and tea and coffee and stewed fruit, and
honey and
eggs, and cold fish and kidneys, and hot fish and liver? All
the
ladies
eat, too, especially the ladies."

"Certainly.
I myself have noticed it, when I was living in a hotel in
Leicester
Square," cried the Herr Rat. "It was a good hotel,
but they
could not
make tea--now--"

"Ah,
that's one thing I CAN do," said I, laughing brightly. "I
can make
very good
tea. The great secret is to warm the teapot."

"Warm
the teapot," interrupted the Herr Rat, pushing away his soup
plate.
"What
do you warm the teapot for? Ha! ha! that's very good! One
does not
eat the
teapot, I suppose?"

He fixed
his cold blue eyes upon me with an expression which suggested a
thousand
premeditated invasions.

"So
that is the great secret of your English tea? All you do is to
warm
the
teapot."

I wanted
to say that was only the preliminary canter, but could not
translate
it, and so was silent.

The
servant brought in veal, with sauerkraut and potatoes.

"I
eat sauerkraut with great pleasure," said the Traveller from
North
Germany,
"but now I have eaten so much of it that I cannot retain it.
I am
immediately
forced to--"

"A
beautiful day," I cried, turning to Fraulein Stiegelauer.
"Did you get
up early?"

"At
five o'clock I walked for ten minutes in the wet grass. Again
in bed.
At
half-past five I fell asleep, and woke at seven, when I made an
'overbody'
washing! Again in bed. At eight o'clock I had a
cold-water
poultice,
and at half past eight I drank a cup of mint tea. At nine I
drank some
malt coffee, and began my 'cure.' Pass me the sauerkraut,
please.
You do not eat it?"

"No,
thank you. I still find it a little strong."

"Is
it true," asked the Widow, picking her teeth with a hairpin as
she
spoke,
"that you are a vegetarian?"

"Why,
yes; I have not eaten meat for three years."

"Im--possible!
Have you any family?"

"No."

"There
now, you see, that's what you're coming to! Who ever heard of
having
children upon vegetables? It is not possible. But you
never have
large
families in England now; I suppose you are too busy with your
suffragetting.
Now I have had nine children, and they are all alive, thank
God.
Fine, healthy babies--though after the first one was born I had to--"

"How
WONDERFUL!" I cried.

"Wonderful,"
said the Widow contemptuously, replacing the hairpin in the
knob which
was balanced on the top of her head. "Not at all! A
friend of
mine had
four at the same time. Her husband was so pleased he gave a
supper-party
and had them placed on the table. Of course she was very
proud."

"Germany,"
boomed the Traveller, biting round a potato which he had speared
with his
knife, "is the home of the Family."

Followed
an appreciative silence.

The dishes
were changed for beef, red currants and spinach. They wiped
their
forks upon black bread and started again.

"How
long are you remaining here?" asked the Herr Rat.

"I do
not know exactly. I must be back in London in September."

"Of
course you will visit Munchen?"

"I am
afraid I shall not have time. You see, it is important not to
break
into my
'cure.'"

"But
you MUST go to Munchen. You have not seen Germany if you have
not
been to
Munchen. All the Exhibitions, all the Art and Soul life of
Germany
are in
Munchen. There is the Wagner Festival in August, and Mozart and
a
Japanese
collection of pictures--and there is the beer! You do not know
what good
beer is until you have been to Munchen. Why, I see fine ladies
every
afternoon, but fine ladies, I tell you, drinking glasses so high."
He
measured a good washstand pitcher in height, and I smiled.

"If I
drink a great deal of Munchen beer I sweat so," said Herr
Hoffmann.
"When
I am here, in the fields or before my baths, I sweat, but I enjoy it;
but in the
town it is not at all the same thing."

Prompted
by the thought, he wiped his neck and face with his dinner napkin
and
carefully cleaned his ears.

A glass
dish of stewed apricots was placed upon the table.

"Ah,
fruit!" said Fraulein Stiegelauer, "that is so necessary to
health.
The doctor
told me this morning that the more fruit I could eat the
better."

She very
obviously followed the advice.

Said the
Traveller: "I suppose you are frightened of an invasion,
too, eh?
Oh, that's
good. I've been reading all about your English play in a
newspaper.
Did you see it?"

"Yes."
I sat upright. "I assure you we are not afraid."

"Well,
then, you ought to be," said the Herr Rat. "You have
got no army at
all--a few
little boys with their veins full of nicotine poisoning."

"Don't
be afraid," Herr Hoffmann said. "We don't want
England. If we did
we would
have had her long ago. We really do not want you."

He waved
his spoon airily, looking across at me as though I were a little
child whom
he would keep or dismiss as he pleased.

"We
certainly do not want Germany," I said.

"This
morning I took a half bath. Then this afternoon I must take a
knee
bath and
an arm bath," volunteered the Herr Rat; "then I do my
exercises
for an
hour, and my work is over. A glass of wine and a couple of
rolls
with some
sardines--"

They were
handed cherry cake with whipped cream.

"What
is your husband's favourite meat?" asked the Widow.

"I
really do not know," I answered.

"You
really do not know? How long have you been married?"

"Three
years."

"But
you cannot be in earnest! You would not have kept house as his
wife
for a week
without knowing that fact."

"I
really never asked him; he is not at all particular about his food."

A pause.
They all looked at me, shaking their heads, their mouths full of
cherry
stones.

"No
wonder there is a repetition in England of that dreadful state of
things in
Paris," said the Widow, folding her dinner napkin. "How
can a
woman
expect to keep her husband if she does not know his favourite food
after
three years?"

"Mahlzeit!"

"Mahlzeit!"

I closed
the door after me.

2.
THE BARON.

"Who
is he?" I said. "And why does he sit always alone,
with his back to
us, too?"

"Ah!"
whispered the Frau Oberregierungsrat, "he is a BARON."

She looked
at me very solemnly, and yet with the slightest possible
contempt--a
"fancy-not-recognising-that-at-the-first-glance"
expression.

"But,
poor soul, he cannot help it," I said. "Surely that
unfortunate fact
ought not
to debar him from the pleasures of intellectual intercourse."

If it had
not been for her fork I think she would have crossed herself.

"Surely
you cannot understand. He is one of the First Barons."

More than
a little unnerved, she turned and spoke to the Frau Doktor on her
left.

"My
omelette is empty--EMPTY," she protested, "and this is the
third I have
tried!"

I looked
at the First of the Barons. He was eating salad--taking a whole
lettuce
leaf on his fork and absorbing it slowly, rabbit-wise--a
fascinating
process to watch.

Small and
slight, with scanty black hair and beard and yellow-toned
complexion,
he invariably wore black serge clothes, a rough linen shirt,
black
sandals, and the largest black-rimmed spectacles that I had ever
seen.

The Herr
Oberlehrer, who sat opposite me, smiled benignantly.

"It
must be very interesting for you, gnadige Frau, to be able to
watch....
of course
this is a VERY FINE HOUSE. There was a lady from the Spanish
Court here
in the summer; she had a liver. We often spoke together."

I looked
gratified and humble.

"Now,
in England, in your 'boarding 'ouse', one does not find the First
Class, as
in Germany."

"No,
indeed," I replied, still hypnotised by the Baron, who looked
like a
little
yellow silkworm.

"The
Baron comes every year," went on the Herr Oberlehrer, "for
his nerves.
He has
never spoken to any of the guests--YET! A smile crossed his
face.
I seemed
to see his visions of some splendid upheaval of that silence--a
dazzling
exchange of courtesies in a dim future, a splendid sacrifice of a
newspaper
to this Exalted One, a "danke schon" to be handed down to
future
generations.

At that
moment the postman, looking like a German army officer, came in
with the
mail. He threw my letters into my milk pudding, and then turned
to a
waitress and whispered. She retired hastily. The manager
of the
pension
came in with a little tray. A picture post card was deposited
on
it, and
reverently bowing his head, the manager of the pension carried it
to the
Baron.

Myself, I
felt disappointed that there was not a salute of twenty-five
guns.

At the end
of the meal we were served with coffee. I noticed the Baron
took three
lumps of sugar, putting two in his cup and wrapping up the third
in a
corner of his pocket-handkerchief. He was always the first to
enter
the
dining-room and the last to leave; and in a vacant chair beside him
he
placed a
little black leather bag.

In the
afternoon, leaning from my window, I saw him pass down the street,
walking
tremulously and carrying the bag. Each time he passed a
lamp-post
he shrank
a little, as though expecting it to strike him, or maybe the
sense of
plebeian contamination...

I wondered
where he was going, and why he carried the bag. Never had I
seen him
at the Casino or the Bath Establishment. He looked forlorn, his
feet
slipped in his sandals. I found myself pitying the Baron.

That
evening a party of us were gathered in the salon discussing the day's
"kur"
with feverish animation. The Frau Oberregierungsrat sat by me
knitting a
shawl for her youngest of nine daughters, who was in that very
interesting,
frail condition..."But it is bound to be quite satisfactory,"
she said
to me. "The dear married a banker--the desire of her
life."

There must
have been eight or ten of us gathered together, we who were
married
exchanging confidences as to the underclothing and peculiar
characteristics
of our husbands, the unmarried discussing the over-clothing
and
peculiar fascinations of Possible Ones.

"I
knit them myself," I heard the Frau Lehrer cry, "of thick
grey wool. He
wears one
a month, with two soft collars."

Small
wonder that we were a little violently excited, a little
expostulatory.

Suddenly
the door opened and admitted the Baron.

Followed a
complete and deathlike silence.

He came in
slowly, hesitated, took up a toothpick from a dish on the top of
the piano,
and went out again.

When the
door was closed we raised a triumphant cry! It was the first
time
he had
ever been known to enter the salon. Who could tell what the
Future
held?

Days
lengthened into weeks. Still we were together, and still the
solitary
little
figure, head bowed as though under the weight of the spectacles,
haunted
me. He entered with the black bag, he retired with the black
bag--and
that was all.

At last
the manager of the pension told us the Baron was leaving the next
day.

"Oh,"
I thought, "surely he cannot drift into obscurity--be lost
without
one word!
Surely he will honour the Frau Oberregierungsrat of the Frau
Feldleutnantswitwe
ONCE before he goes."

In the
evening of that day it rained heavily. I went to the post
office,
and as I
stood on the steps, umbrellaless, hesitating before plunging into
the slushy
road, a little, hesitating voice seemed to come from under my
elbow.

I looked
down. It was the First of the Barons with the black bag and an
umbrella.
Was I mad? Was I sane? He was asking me to share the
latter.
But I was
exceedingly nice, a trifle diffident, appropriately reverential.
Together
we walked through the mud and slush.

Now, there
is something peculiarly intimate in sharing an umbrella.

It is apt
to put one on the same footing as brushing a man's coat for
him--a
little daring, naive.

I longed
to know why he sat alone, why he carried the bag, what he did all
day.
But he himself volunteered some information.

"I
fear," he said, "that my luggage will be damp. I
invariably carry it
with me in
this bag--one requires so little--for servants are
untrustworthy."

"A
wise idea," I answered. And then: "Why have you
denied us the
pleasure--"

"I
sit alone that I may eat more," said the Baron, peering into the
dusk;
"my
stomach requires a great deal of food. I order double portions,
and
eat them
in peace."

Which
sounded finely Baronial.

"And
what do you do all day?"

"I
imbibe nourishment in my room," he replied, in a voice that
closed the
conversation
and almost repented of the umbrella.

When we
arrived at the pension there was very nearly an open riot.

I ran half
way up the stairs, and thanked the Baron audibly from the
landing.

He
distinctly replied: "Not at all!"

It was
very friendly of the Herr Oberlehrer to have sent me a bouquet that
evening,
and the Frau Oberregierungsrat asked me for my pattern of a baby's
bonnet!

...

Next day
the Baron was gone.

Sic
transit gloria German mundi.

3.
THE SISTER OF THE BARONESS.

"There
are two new guests arriving this afternoon," said the manager of
the
pension,
placing a chair for me at the breakfast table. "I have
only
received
the letter acquainting me with the fact this morning. The
Baroness
von Gall is sending her little daughter--the poor child is
dumb--to
make the 'cure.' She is to stay with us a month, and then the
Baroness
herself is coming."

"Baroness
von Gall," cried the Frau Doktor, coming into the room and
positively
scenting the name. "Coming here? There was a picture
of her
only last
week in 'Sport and Salon.' She is a friend of the court:
I have
heard that
the Kaiserin says 'du' to her. But this is delightful! I
shall
take my
doctor's advice and spend an extra six weeks here. There is
nothing
like young society."

"But
the child is dumb," ventured the manager apologetically.

"Bah!
What does that matter? Afflicted children have such pretty
ways."

Each guest
who came into the breakfast-room was bombarded with the
wonderful
news. "The Baroness von Gall is sending her little
daughter
here; the
Baroness herself is coming in a month's time." Coffee and
rolls
took on
the nature of an orgy. We positively scintillated.
Anecdotes of
the High
Born were poured out, sweetened and sipped: we gorged on
scandals
of High
Birth generously buttered.

"They
are to have the room next to yours," said the manager,
addressing me.
"I
was wondering if you would permit me to take down the portrait of the
Kaiserin
Elizabeth from above your bed to hang over their sofa."

I felt a
little crushed. Not at the prospect of losing that vision of
diamonds
and blue velvet bust, but at the tone--placing me outside the
pale--branding
me as a foreigner.

We
dissipated the day in valid speculations. Decided it was too
warm to
walk in
the afternoon, so lay down on our beds, mustering in great force
for
afternoon coffee. And a carriage drew up at the door. A
tall young
girl got
out, leading a child by the hand. They entered the hall, were
greeted
and shown to their room. Ten minutes later she came down with
the
child to
sign the visitors' book. She wore a black, closely fitting
dress,
touched at
throat and wrists with white frilling. Her brown hair, braided,
was tied
with a black bow--unusually pale, with a small mole on her left
cheek.

"I am
the Baroness von Gall's sister," she said, trying the pen on a
piece
of
blotting-paper, and smiling at us deprecatingly. Even for the
most
jaded of
us life holds its thrilling moments. Two Baronesses in two
months!
The manager immediately left the room to find a new nib.

To my
plebeian eyes that afflicted child was singularly unattractive.
She
had the
air of having been perpetually washed with a blue bag, and hair
like grey
wool--dressed, too, in a pinafore so stiffly starched that she
could only
peer at us over the frill of it--a social barrier of a
pinafore--and
perhaps it was too much to expect a noble aunt to attend to
the menial
consideration of her niece's ears. But a dumb niece with
unwashed
ears struck me as a most depressing object.

They were
given places at the head of the table. For a moment we all
looked at
one another with an eena-deena-dina-do expression. Then the
Frau
Oberregierungsrat:

"I
hope you are not tired after your journey."

"No,"
said the sister of the Baroness, smiling into her cup.

"I
hope the dear child is not tired," said the Frau Doktor.

"Not
at all."

"I
expect, I hope you will sleep well to-night," the Herr
Oberlehrer said
reverently.

"Yes."

The poet
from Munich never took his eyes off the pair. He allowed his
tie
to absorb
most of his coffee while he gazed at them exceedingly soulfully.

Unyoking
Pegasus, thought I. Death spasms of his Odes to Solitude!
There
were
possibilities in that young woman for an inspiration, not to mention
a
dedication,
and from that moment his suffering temperament took up its bed
and
walked.

They
retired after the meal, leaving us to discuss them at leisure.

"There
is a likeness," mused the Frau Doktor. "Quite.
What a manner she
has.
Such reserve, such a tender way with the child."

"Pity
she has the child to attend to," exclaimed the student from
Bonn. He
had
hitherto relied upon three scars and a ribbon to produce an effect,
but
the sister
of a Baroness demanded more than these.

Absorbing
days followed. Had she been one whit less beautifully born we
could not
have endured the continual conversation about her, the songs in
her
praise, the detailed account of her movements. But she
graciously
suffered
our worship and we were more than content.

The poet
she took into her confidence. He carried her books when we went
walking,
he jumped the afflicted one on his knee--poetic licence, this--and
one
morning brought his notebook into the salon and read to us.

"The
sister of the Baroness has assured me she is going into a convent,"
he
said.
(That made the student from Bonn sit up.) "I have written
these few
lines last
night from my window in the sweet night air--"

"Oh,
your DELICATE chest," commented the Frau Doktor.

He fixed a
stony eye on her, and she blushed.

"I
have written these lines:
"'Ah,
will you to a convent fly,
So young, so fresh, so fair?
Spring like a doe upon the fields
And find your beauty there.'"

Nine
verses equally lovely commanded her to equally violent action.
I am
certain
that had she followed his advice not even the remainder of her life
in a
convent would have given her time to recover her breath.

"I
have presented her with a copy," he said. "And to-day
we are going to
look for
wild flowers in the wood."

The
student from Bonn got up and left the room. I begged the poet
to
repeat the
verses once more. At the end of the sixth verse I saw from the
window the
sister of the Baroness and the scarred youth disappearing
through
the front gate, which enabled me to thank the poet so charmingly
that he
offered to write me out a copy.

But we
were living at too high pressure in those days. Swinging from
our
humble
pension to the high walls of palaces, how could we help but fall?
Late one
afternoon the Frau Doktor came upon me in the writing-room and
took me to
her bosom.

"She
has been telling me all about her life," whispered the Frau
Doktor.
"She
came to my bedroom and offered to massage my arm. You know, I
am the
greatest
martyr to rheumatism. And, fancy now, she has already had six
proposals
of marriage. Such beautiful offers that I assure you I
wept--and
every one
of noble birth. My dear, the most beautiful was in the wood.
Not that I
do not think a proposal should take place in a drawing-room--it
is more
fitting to have four walls--but this was a private wood. He
said,
the young
officer, she was like a young tree whose branches had never been
touched by
the ruthless hand of man. Such delicacy!" She sighed
and
turned up
her eyes.

"Of
course it is difficult for you English to understand when you are
always
exposing your legs on cricket-fields, and breeding dogs in your back
gardens.
The pity of it! Youth should be like a wild rose. For
myself I
do not
understand how your women ever get married at all."

She shook
her head so violently that I shook mine too, and a gloom settled
round my
heart. It seemed we were really in a very bad way. Did
the
spirit of
romance spread her rose wings only over aristocratic Germany?

I went to
my room, bound a pink scarf about my hair, and took a volume of
Morike's
lyrics into the garden. A great bush of purple lilac grew
behind
the
summer-house. There I sat down, finding a sad significance in
the
delicate
suggestion of half mourning. I began to write a poem myself.

"They
sway and languish dreamily, And
we, close pressed, are kissing there."

It ended!
"Close pressed" did not sound at all fascinating.
Savoured of
wardrobes.
Did my wild rose then already trail in the dust? I chewed a
leaf and
hugged my knees. Then--magic moment--I heard voices from the
summer-house,
the sister of the Baroness and the student from Bonn.

Second-hand
was better than nothing; I pricked up my ears.

"What
small hands you have," said the student from Bonn. "They
are like
white
lilies lying in the pool of your black dress." This
certainly
sounded
the real thing. Her high-born reply was what interested me.
Sympathetic
murmur only.

"May
I hold one?"

I heard
two sighs--presumed they held--he had rifled those dark waters of a
noble
blossom.

"Look
at my great fingers beside yours."

"But
they are beautifully kept," said the sister of the Baroness
shyly.

The minx!
Was love then a question of manicure?

"How
I should adore to kiss you," murmured the student. "But
you know I am
suffering
from severe nasal catarrh, and I dare not risk giving it to you.
Sixteen
times last night did I count myself sneezing. And three
different
handkerchiefs."

I threw
Morike into the lilac bush, and went back to the house. A great
automobile
snorted at the front door. In the salon great commotion.
The
Baroness
was paying a surprise visit to her little daughter. Clad in a
yellow
mackintosh she stood in the middle of the room questioning the
manager.
And every guest the pension contained was grouped about her, even
the Frau
Doktor, presumably examining a timetable, as near to the august
skirts as
possible.

"But
where is my maid?" asked the Baroness.

"There
was no maid," replied the manager, "save for your gracious
sister
and
daughter."

"Sister!"
she cried sharply. "Fool, I have no sister. My child
travelled
with the
daughter of my dressmaker."

Tableau
grandissimo!

4.
FRAU FISCHER.

Frau
Fischer was the fortunate possessor of a candle factory somewhere on
the banks
of the Eger, and once a year she ceased from her labours to make
a "cure"
in Dorschausen, arriving with a dress-basket neatly covered in a
black
tarpaulin and a hand-bag. The latter contained amongst her
handkerchiefs,
eau de Cologne, toothpicks, and a certain woollen muffler
very
comforting to the "magen," samples of her skill in
candle-making, to
be offered
up as tokens of thanksgiving when her holiday time was over.

Four of
the clock one July afternoon she appeared at the Pension Muller.
I
was
sitting in the arbour and watched her bustling up the path followed
by
the
red-bearded porter with her dress-basket in his arms and a sunflower
between
his teeth. The widow and her five innocent daughters stood
tastefully
grouped upon the steps in appropriate attitudes of welcome; and
the
greetings were so long and loud that I felt a sympathetic glow.

"What
a journey!" cried the Frau Fischer. "And nothing to
eat in the
train--nothing
solid. I assure you the sides of my stomach are flapping
together.
But I must not spoil my appetite for dinner--just a cup of
coffee in
my room. Bertha," turning to the youngest of the five,
"how
changed!
What a bust! Frau Hartmann, I congratulate you."

Once again
the Widow seized Frau Fischer's hands. "Kathi, too, a
splendid
woman; but
a little pale. Perhaps the young man from Nurnberg is here
again this
year. How you keep them all I don't know. Each year I
come
expecting
to find you with an empty nest. It's surprising."

Frau
Hartmann, in an ashamed, apologetic voice: "We are such a
happy
family
since my dear man died."

"But
these marriages--one must have courage; and after all, give them
time,
they all
make the happy family bigger--thank God for that...Are there many
people
here just now?"

"Every
room engaged."

Followed a
detailed description in the hall, murmured on the stairs,
continued
in six parts as they entered the large room (windows opening upon
the
garden) which Frau Fischer occupied each successive year. I was
reading
the "Miracles of Lourdes," which a Catholic priest--fixing
a gloomy
eye upon
my soul--had begged me to digest; but its wonders were completely
routed by
Frau Fischer's arrival. Not even the white roses upon the feet
of the
Virgin could flourish in that atmosphere.

"...It
was a simple shepherd-child who pastured her flocks upon the
barren
fields..."

Voices
from the room above: "The washstand has, of course, been
scrubbed
over with
soda."

"...Poverty-stricken,
her limbs with tattered rags half covered..."

"Every
stick of the furniture has been sunning in the garden for three
days.
And the carpet we made ourselves out of old clothes. There is a
piece of
that beautiful flannel petticoat you left us last summer."

"...Deaf
and dumb was the child; in fact, the population considered her
half
idiot..."

"Yes,
that is a new picture of the Kaiser. We have moved the
thorn-crowned
one of
Jesus Christ out into the passage. It was not cheerful to sleep
with.
Dear Frau Fischer, won't you take your coffee out in the garden?"

"That
is a very nice idea. But first I must remove my corsets and my
boots.
Ah, what a relief to wear sandals again. I am needing the
'cure'
very badly
this year. My nerves! I am a mass of them. During
the entire
journey I
sat with my handkerchief over my head, even while the guard
collected
the tickets. Exhausted!"

She came
into the arbour wearing a black and white spotted dressing-gown,
and a
calico cap peaked with patent leather, followed by Kathi, carrying
the little
blue jugs of malt coffee. We were formally introduced.
Frau
Fischer
sat down, produced a perfectly clean pocket handkerchief and
polished
her cup and saucer, then lifted the lid of the coffee-pot and
peered in
at the contents mournfully.

"Malt
coffee," she said. "Ah, for the first few days I
wonder how I can
put up
with it. Naturally, absent from home one must expect much
discomfort
and strange food. But as I used to say to my dear husband:
with a
clean sheet and a good cup of coffee I can find my happiness
anywhere.
But now, with nerves like mine, no sacrifice is too terrible for
me to
make. What complaint are you suffering from? You look
exceedingly
healthy!"

I smiled
and shrugged my shoulders.

"Ah,
that is so strange about you English. You do not seem to enjoy
discussing
the functions of the body. As well speak of a railway train and
refuse to
mention the engine. How can we hope to understand anybody,
knowing
nothing of their stomachs? In my husband's most severe
illness--
the
poultices--"

She dipped
a piece of sugar in her coffee and watched it dissolve.

"Yet
a young friend of mine who travelled to England for the funeral of
his
brother
told me that women wore bodices in public restaurants no waiter
could help
looking into as he handed the soup."

"But
only German waiters," I said. "English ones look over
the top of your
head."

"There,"
she cried, "now you see your dependence on Germany. Not
even an
efficient
waiter can you have by yourselves."

"But
I prefer them to look over your head."

"And
that proves that you must be ashamed of your bodice."

I looked
out over the garden full of wall-flowers and standard rose-trees
growing
stiffly like German bouquets, feeling I did not care one way or the
other.
I rather wanted to ask her if the young friend had gone to England
in the
capacity of waiter to attend the funeral baked meats, but decided it
was not
worth it. The weather was too hot to be malicious, and who
could
be
uncharitable, victimised by the flapping sensations which Frau
Fischer
was
enduring until six-thirty? As a gift from heaven for my
forbearance,
down the
path towards us came the Herr Rat, angelically clad in a white
silk
suit. He and Frau Fischer were old friends. She drew the
folds of
her
dressing-gown together, and made room for him on the little green
bench.

"How
cool you are looking," she said; "and if I may make the
remark--what a
beautiful
suit!"

"Surely
I wore it last summer when you were here? I brought the silk
from
China--smuggled
it through the Russian customs by swathing it round my
body.
And such a quantity: two dress lengths for my sister-in-law,
three
suits for
myself, a cloak for the housekeeper of my flat in Munich. How I
perspired!
Every inch of it had to be washed afterwards."

"Surely
you have had more adventures than any man in Germany. When I
think
of the
time that you spent in Turkey with a drunken guide who was bitten by
a mad dog
and fell over a precipice into a field of attar of roses, I
lament
that you have not written a book."

"Time--time.
I am getting a few notes together. And now that you are here
we shall
renew our quiet little talks after supper. Yes? It is
necessary
and
pleasant for a man to find relaxation in the company of women
occasionally."

"Indeed
I realise that. Even here your life is too strenuous--you are
so
sought
after--so admired. It was just the same with my dear husband.
He
was a
tall, beautiful man, and sometimes in the evening he would come down
into the
kitchen and say: 'Wife, I would like to be stupid for two
minutes.'
Nothing rested him so much then as for me to stroke his head."

The Herr
Rat's bald pate glistening in the sunlight seemed symbolical of
the sad
absence of a wife.

I began to
wonder as to the nature of these quiet little after-supper
talks.
How could one play Delilah to so shorn a Samson?

"Herr
Hoffmann from Berlin arrived yesterday," said the Herr Rat.

"That
young man I refuse to converse with. He told me last year that
he
had stayed
in France in an hotel where they did not have serviettes; what a
place it
must have been! In Austria even the cabmen have serviettes.
Also
I have
heard that he discussed 'free love' with Bertha as she was sweeping
his room.
I am not accustomed to such company. I had suspected him for a
long
time."

"Young
blood," answered the Herr Rat genially. "I have had
several
disputes
with him--you have heard them--is it not so?" turning to me.

"A
great many," I said, smiling.

"Doubtless
you too consider me behind the times. I make no secret of my
age; I am
sixty-nine; but you must have surely observed how impossible it
was for
him to speak at all when I raised my voice."

I replied
with the utmost conviction, and, catching Frau Fischer's eye,
suddenly
realised I had better go back to the house and write some letters.

It was
dark and cool in my room. A chestnut tree pushed green boughs
against
the window. I looked down at the horsehair sofa so openly
flouting
the idea
of curling up as immoral, pulled the red pillow on to the floor
and lay
down. And barely had I got comfortable when the door opened and
Frau
Fischer entered.

"The
Herr Rat had a bathing appointment," she said, shutting the door
after
her.
"May I come in? Pray do not move. You look like a
little Persian
kitten.
Now, tell me something really interesting about your life. When
I
meet new
people I squeeze them dry like a sponge. To begin with--you are
married."

I admit
the fact.

"Then,
dear child, where is your husband?"

I said he
was a sea-captain on a long and perilous voyage.

"What
a position to leave you in--so young and so unprotected."

She sat
down on the sofa and shook her finger at me playfully.

"Admit,
now, that you keep your journeys secret from him. For what man
would
think of allowing a woman with such a wealth of hair to go wandering
in foreign
countries? Now, supposing that you lost your purse at midnight
in a
snowbound train in North Russia?"

"But
I haven't the slightest intention--" I began.

"I
don't say that you have. But when you said good-bye to your
dear man I
am
positive that you had no intention of coming here. My dear, I
am a
woman of
experience, and I know the world. While he is away you have a
fever in
your blood. Your sad heart flies for comfort to these foreign
lands.
At home you cannot bear the sight of that empty bed---it is like
widowhood.
Since the death of my dear husband I have never known an hour's
peace."

"I
like empty beds," I protested sleepily, thumping the pillow.

"That
cannot be true because it is not natural. Every wife ought to
feel
that her
place is by her husband's side--sleeping or waking. It is plain
to see
that the strongest tie of all does not yet bind you. Wait until
a
little
pair of hands stretches across the water--wait until he comes into
harbour
and sees you with the child at your breast."

I sat up
stiffly.

"But
I consider child-bearing the most ignominious of all professions,"
I
said.

For a
moment there was silence. Then Frau Fischer reached down and
caught
my hand.

"So
young and yet to suffer so cruelly," she murmured. "There
is nothing
that sours
a woman so terribly as to be left alone without a man,
especially
if she is married, for then it is impossible for her to accept
the
attention of others--unless she is unfortunately a widow. Of
course, I
know that
sea-captains are subject to terrible temptations, and they are as
inflammable
as tenor singers--that is why you must present a bright and
energetic
appearance, and try and make him proud of you when his ship
reaches
port."

This
husband that I had created for the benefit of Frau Fischer became in
her hands
so substantial a figure that I could no longer see myself sitting
on a rock
with seaweed in my hair, awaiting that phantom ship for which all
women love
to suppose they hunger. Rather I saw myself pushing a
perambulator
up the gangway, and counting up the missing buttons on my
husband's
uniform jacket.

"Handfuls
of babies, that is what you are really in need of," mused Frau
Fischer.
"Then, as the father of a family he cannot leave you.
Think of
his
delight and excitement when he saw you!"

The plan
seemed to me something of a risk. To appear suddenly with
handfuls
of strange babies is not generally calculated to raise enthusiasm
in the
heart of the average British husband. I decided to wreck my
virgin
conception
and send him down somewhere off Cape Horn.

Then the
dinner-gong sounded.

"Come
up to my room afterwards," said Frau Fischer. "There
is still much
that I
must ask you."

She
squeezed my hand, but I did not squeeze back.

5.
FRAU BRECHENMACHER ATTENDS A WEDDING.

Getting
ready was a terrible business. After supper Frau Brechenmacher
packed
four of the five babies to bed, allowing Rosa to stay with her and
help to
polish the buttons of Herr Brechenmacher's uniform. Then she
ran
over his
best shirt with a hot iron, polished his boots, and put a stitch
or two
into his black satin necktie.

"Rosa,"
she said, "fetch my dress and hang it in front of the stove to
get
the
creases out. Now, mind, you must look after the children and
not sit
up later
than half-past eight, and not touch the lamp--you know what will
happen if
you do."

"Yes,
Mamma," said Rosa, who was nine and felt old enough to manage a
thousand
lamps. "But let me stay up--the 'Bub' may wake and want
some
milk."

"Half-past
eight!" said the Frau. "I'll make the father tell you
too."

Rosa drew
down the corners of her mouth.

"But...but..."

"Here
comes the father. You go into the bedroom and fetch my blue
silk
handkerchief.
You can wear my black shawl while I'm out--there now!"

Rosa
dragged it off her mother's shoulders and wound it carefully round
her
own, tying
the two ends in a knot at the back. After all, she reflected,
if she had
to go to bed at half past eight she would keep the shawl on.
Which
resolution comforted her absolutely.

"Now,
then, where are my clothes?" cried Herr Brechenmacher, hanging
his
empty
letter-bag behind the door and stamping the snow out of his boots.
"Nothing
ready, of course, and everybody at the wedding by this time. I
heard the
music as I passed. What are you doing? You're not
dressed. You
can't go
like that."

"Here
they are--all ready for you on the table, and some warm water in the
tin
basin. Dip your head in. Rosa, give your father the
towel.
Everything
ready except the trousers. I haven't had time to shorten them.
You must
tuck the ends into your boots until we get there."

"Nu,"
said the Herr, "there isn't room to turn. I want the
light. You go
and dress
in the passage."

Dressing
in the dark was nothing to Frau Brechenmacher. She hooked her
skirt and
bodice, fastened her handkerchief round her neck with a beautiful
brooch
that had four medals to the Virgin dangling from it, and then drew
on her
cloak and hood.

"Here,
come and fasten this buckle," called Herr Brechenmacher.
He stood
in the
kitchen puffing himself out, the buttons on his blue uniform shining
with an
enthusiasm which nothing but official buttons could possibly
possess.
"How do I look?"

"Wonderful,"
replied the little Frau, straining at the waist buckle and
giving him
a little pull here, a little tug there. "Rosa, come and
look at
your
father."

Herr
Brechenmacher strode up and down the kitchen, was helped on with his
coat, then
waited while the Frau lighted the lantern.

Snow had
not fallen all day; the frozen ground was slippery as an icepond.
She had
not been out of the house for weeks past, and the day had so
flurried
her that she felt muddled and stupid--felt that Rosa had pushed
her out of
the house and her man was running away from her.

"Wait,
wait!" she cried.

"No.
I'll get my feet damp--you hurry."

It was
easier when they came into the village. There were fences to
cling
to, and
leading from the railway station to the Gasthaus a little path of
cinders
had been strewn for the benefit of the wedding guests.

The
Gasthaus was very festive. Lights shone out from every window,
wreaths
of fir
twigs hung from the ledges. Branches decorated the front doors,
which
swung open, and in the hall the landlord voiced his superiority by
bullying
the waitresses, who ran about continually with glasses of beer,
trays of
cups and saucers, and bottles of wine.

"Up
the stairs--up the stairs!" boomed the landlord. "Leave
your coats on
the
landing."

Herr
Brechenmacher, completely overawed by this grand manner, so far
forgot
his rights
as a husband as to beg his wife's pardon for jostling her
against
the banisters in his efforts to get ahead of everybody else.

Herr
Brechenmacher's colleagues greeted him with acclamation as he entered
the door
of the Festsaal, and the Frau straightened her brooch and folded
her hands,
assuming the air of dignity becoming to the wife of a postman
and the
mother of five children. Beautiful indeed was the Festsaal.
Three
long
tables were grouped at one end, the remainder of the floor space
cleared
for dancing. Oil lamps, hanging from the ceiling, shed a warm,
bright
light on the walls decorated with paper flowers and garlands; shed a
warmer,
brighter light on the red faces of the guests in their best
clothes.

At the
head of the centre table sat the bride and bridegroom, she in a
white
dress trimmed with stripes and bows of coloured ribbon, giving her
the
appearance of an iced cake all ready to be cut and served in neat
little
pieces to the bridegroom beside her, who wore a suit of white
clothes
much too large for him and a white silk tie that rose halfway up
his
collar. Grouped about them, with a fine regard for dignity and
precedence,
sat their parents and relations; and perched on a stool at the
bride's
right hand a little girl in a crumpled muslin dress with a wreath
of
forget-me-nots hanging over one ear. Everybody was laughing and
talking,
shaking hands, clinking glasses, stamping on the floor--a stench
of beer
and perspiration filled the air.

Frau
Brechenmacher, following her man down the room after greeting the
bridal
party, knew that she was going to enjoy herself. She seemed to
fill
out and
become rosy and warm as she sniffed that familiar festive smell.
Somebody
pulled at her skirt, and, looking down, she saw Frau Rupp, the
butcher's
wife, who pulled out an empty chair and begged her to sit beside
her.

"Fritz
will get you some beer," she said. "My dear, your
skirt is open at
the back.
We could not help laughing as you walked up the room with the
white tape
of your petticoat showing!"

"But
how frightful!" said Frau Brechenmacher, collapsing into her
chair and
biting her
lip.

"Na,
it's over now," said Frau Rupp, stretching her fat hands over
the
table and
regarding her three mourning rings with intense enjoyment; "but
one must
be careful, especially at a wedding."

"And
such a wedding as this," cried Frau Ledermann, who sat on the
other
side of
Frau Brechenmacher. "Fancy Theresa bringing that child
with her.
It's her
own child, you know, my dear, and it's going to live with them.
That's
what I call a sin against the Church for a free-born child to attend
its own
mother's wedding."

The three
women sat and stared at the bride, who remained very still, with
a little
vacant smile on her lips, only her eyes shifting uneasily from
side to
side.

"Beer
they've given it, too," whispered Frau Rupp, "and white
wine and an
ice.
It never did have a stomach; she ought to have left it at home."

Frau
Brechenmacher turned round and looked towards the bride's mother.
She
never took
her eyes off her daughter, but wrinkled her brown forehead like
an old
monkey, and nodded now and again very solemnly. Her hands shook
as
she raised
her beer mug, and when she had drunk she spat on the floor and
savagely
wiped her mouth with her sleeve. Then the music started and she
followed
Theresa with her eyes, looking suspiciously at each man who danced
with her.

"Cheer
up, old woman," shouted her husband, digging her in the ribs;
"this
isn't
Theresa's funeral." He winked at the guests, who broke
into loud
laughter.

"I AM
cheerful," mumbled the old woman, and beat upon the table with
her
fist,
keeping time to the music, proving she was not out of the
festivities.

"She
can't forget how wild Theresa has been," said Frau Ledermann.
"Who
could--with
the child there? I heard that last Sunday evening Theresa had
hysterics
and said that she would not marry this man. They had to get the
priest to
her."

"Where
is the other one?" asked Frau Brechenmacher. "Why
didn't he marry
her?"

The woman
shrugged her shoulders.

"Gone--disappeared.
He was a traveller, and only stayed at their house two
nights.
He was selling shirt buttons--I bought some myself, and they were
beautiful
shirt buttons--but what a pig of a fellow! I can't think what
he
saw in
such a plain girl--but you never know. Her mother says she's
been
like fire
ever since she was sixteen!"

Frau
Brechenmacher looked down at her beer and blew a little hole in the
froth.

"That's
not how a wedding should be," she said; "it's not religion
to love
two men."

"Nice
time she'll have with this one," Frau Rupp exclaimed. "He
was
lodging
with me last summer and I had to get rid of him. He never
changed
his
clothes once in two months, and when I spoke to him of the smell in
his
room he
told me he was sure it floated up from the shop. Ah, every wife
has her
cross. Isn't that true, my dear?"

Frau
Brechenmacher saw her husband among his colleagues at the next table.
He was
drinking far too much, she knew--gesticulating wildly, the saliva
spluttering
out of his mouth as he talked.

"Yes,"
she assented, "that's true. Girls have a lot to learn."

Wedged in
between these two fat old women, the Frau had no hope of being
asked to
dance. She watched the couples going round and round; she
forgot
her five
babies and her man and felt almost like a girl again. The music
sounded
sad and sweet. Her roughened hands clasped and unclasped
themselves
in the folds of her skirt. While the music went on she was
afraid to
look anybody in the face, and she smiled with a little nervous
tremor
round the mouth.

"But,
my God," Frau Rupp cried, "they've given that child of
Theresa's a
piece of
sausage. It's to keep her quiet. There's going to be a
presentation
now--your man has to speak."

Frau
Brechenmacher sat up stiffly. The music ceased, and the dancers
took
their
places again at the tables.

Herr
Brechenmacher alone remained standing--he held in his hands a big
silver
coffee-pot. Everybody laughed at his speech, except the Frau;
everybody
roared at his grimaces, and at the way he carried the coffee-pot
to the
bridal pair, as if it were a baby he was holding.

She lifted
the lid, peeped in, then shut it down with a little scream and
sat biting
her lips. The bridegroom wrenched the pot away from her and
drew forth
a baby's bottle and two little cradles holding china dolls. As
he dandled
these treasures before Theresa the hot room seemed to heave and
sway with
laughter.

Frau
Brechenmacher did not think it funny. She stared round at the
laughing
faces, and suddenly they all seemed strange to her. She wanted
to
go home
and never come out again. She imagined that all these people
were
laughing
at her, more people than there were in the room even--all laughing
at her
because they were so much stronger than she was.

...
They
walked home in silence. Herr Brechenmacher strode ahead, she
stumbled
after
him. White and forsaken lay the road from the railway station
to
their
house--a cold rush of wind blew her hood from her face, and suddenly
she
remembered how they had come home together the first night. Now
they
had five
babies and twice as much money; BUT--

"Na,
what is it all for?" she muttered, and not until she had reached
home,
and
prepared a little supper of meat and bread for her man did she stop
asking
herself that silly question.

Herr
Brechenmacher broke the bread into his plate, smeared it round with
his fork
and chewed greedily.

"Good?"
she asked, leaning her arms on the table and pillowing her breast
against
them.

"But
fine!"

He took a
piece of the crumb, wiped it round his plate edge, and held it up
to her
mouth. She shook her head.

"Not
hungry," she said.

"But
it is one of the best pieces, and full of the fat."

He cleared
the plate; then pulled off his boots and flung them into a
corner.

"Not
much of a wedding," he said, stretching out his feet and
wriggling his
toes in
the worsted socks.

"N--no,"
she replied, taking up the discarded boots and placing them on the
oven to
dry.

Herr
Brechenmacher yawned and stretched himself, and then looked up at
her,
grinning.

"Remember
the night that we came home? You were an innocent one, you
were."

"Get
along! Such a time ago I forget." Well she
remembered.

"Such
a clout on the ear as you gave me...But I soon taught you."

"Oh,
don't start talking. You've too much beer. Come to bed."

He tilted
back in his chair, chuckling with laughter.

"That's
not what you said to me that night. God, the trouble you gave
me!"

But the
little Frau seized the candle and went into the next room. The
children
were all soundly sleeping. She stripped the mattress off the
baby's bed
to see if he was still dry, then began unfastening her blouse
and skirt.

"Always
the same," she said--"all over the world the same; but, God
in
heaven--but
STUPID.

Then even
the memory of the wedding faded quite. She lay down on the bed
and put
her arm across her face like a child who expected to be hurt as
Herr
Brechenmacher lurched in.

6.
THE MODERN SOUL.

"Good-evening,"
said the Herr Professor, squeezing my hand; "wonderful
weather!
I have just returned from a party in the wood. I have been
making
music for them on my trombone. You know, these pine-trees
provide
most
suitable accompaniment for a trombone! They are sighing
delicacy
against
sustained strength, as I remarked once in a lecture on wind
instruments
in Frankfort. May I be permitted to sit beside you on this
bench,
gnadige Frau?"

He sat
down, tugging at a white-paper package in the tail pocket of his
coat.

"Cherries,"
he said, nodding and smiling. "There is nothing like
cherries
for
producing free saliva after trombone playing, especially after
Grieg's
'Ich Liebe
Dich.' Those sustained blasts on 'liebe' make my throat as dry
as a
railway tunnel. Have some?" He shook the bag at me.

"I
prefer watching you eat them."

"Ah,
ha!" He crossed his legs, sticking the cherry bag between
his knees,
to leave
both hands free. "Psychologically I understood your
refusal. It
is your
innate feminine delicacy in preferring etherealised sensations...Or
perhaps
you do not care to eat the worms. All cherries contain worms.
Once I
made a very interesting experiment with a colleague of mine at the
university.
We bit into four pounds of the best cherries and did not find
one
specimen without a worm. But what would you? As I
remarked to him
afterwards--dear
friend, it amounts to this: if one wishes to satisfy the
desires of
nature one must be strong enough to ignore the facts of
nature...The
conversation is not out of your depth? I have so seldom the
time or
opportunity to open my heart to a woman that I am apt to forget."

I looked
at him brightly.

"See
what a fat one!" cried the Herr Professor. "That is
almost a mouthful
in itself;
it is beautiful enough to hang from a watch-chain." He
chewed
it up and
spat the stone an incredible distance--over the garden path into
the flower
bed. He was proud of the feat. I saw it. "The
quantity of
fruit I
have eaten on this bench," he sighed; "apricots, peaches
and
cherries.
One day that garden bed will become an orchard grove, and I
shall
allow you to pick as much as you please, without paying me anything."

I was
grateful, without showing undue excitement.

"Which
reminds me"--he hit the side of his nose with one finger--"the
manager of
the pension handed me my weekly bill after dinner this evening.
It is
almost impossible to credit. I do not expect you to believe
me--he
has
charged me extra for a miserable little glass of milk I drink in bed
at
night to
prevent insomnia. Naturally, I did not pay. But the
tragedy of
the story
is this: I cannot expect the milk to produce somnolence any
longer; my
peaceful attitude of mind towards it is completely destroyed. I
know I
shall throw myself into a fever in attempting to plumb this want of
generosity
in so wealthy a man as the manager of a pension. Think of me
to-night."--he
ground the empty bag under his heel--"think that the worst
is
happening to me as your head drops asleep on your pillow."

Two ladies
came on the front steps of the pension and stood, arm in arm,
looking
over the garden. The one, old and scraggy, dressed almost
entirely
in black
bead trimming and a satin reticule; the other, young and thin, in
a white
gown, her yellow hair tastefully garnished with mauve sweet peas.

The
Professor drew in his feet and sat up sharply, pulling down his
waistcoat.

"The
Godowskas," he murmured. "Do you know them? A
mother and daughter
from
Vienna. The mother has an internal complaint and the daughter
is an
actress.
Fraulein Sonia is a very modern soul. I think you would find
her
most
sympathetic. She is forced to be in attendance on her mother
just
now.
But what a temperament! I have once described her in her
autograph
album as a
tigress with a flower in the hair. Will you excuse me?
Perhaps
I can
persuade them to be introduced to you."

I said, "I
am going up to my room." But the Professor rose and shook
a
playful
finger at me. "Na," he said, "we are friends,
and, therefore, I
shall
speak quite frankly to you. I think they would consider it a
little
'marked'
if you immediately retired to the house at their approach, after
sitting
here alone with me in the twilight. You know this world.
Yes, you
know it as
I do."

I shrugged
my shoulders, remarking with one eye that while the Professor
had been
talking the Godowskas had trailed across the lawn towards us.
They
confronted the Herr Professor as he stood up.

"Good-evening,"
quavered Frau Godowska. "Wonderful weather! It has
given
me quite a
touch of hay fever!" Fraulein Godowska said nothing.
She
swooped
over a rose growing in the embryo orchard then stretched out her
hand with
a magnificent gesture to the Herr Professor. He presented me.

"This
is my little English friend of whom I have spoken. She is the
stranger
in our midst. We have been eating cherries together."

"How
delightful," sighed Frau Godowska. "My daughter and I
have often
observed
you through the bedroom window. Haven't we, Sonia?"

Sonia
absorbed my outward and visible form with an inward and spiritual
glance,
then repeated the magnificent gesture for my benefit. The four
of
us sat on
the bench, with that faint air of excitement of passengers
established
in a railway carriage on the qui vive for the train whistle.
Frau
Godowska sneezed. "I wonder if it is hay fever," she
remarked,
worrying
the satin reticule for her handkerchief, "or would it be the
dew.
Sonia,
dear, is the dew falling?"

Fraulein
Sonia raised her face to the sky, and half closed her eyes.
"No,
mamma, my
face is quite warm. Oh, look, Herr Professor, there are
swallows
in flight;
they are like a little flock of Japanese thoughts--nicht wahr?"

"Where?"
cried the Herr Professor. "Oh yes, I see, by the kitchen
chimney.
But why do
you say 'Japanese'? Could you not compare them with equal
veracity
to a little flock of German thoughts in flight?" He
rounded on
me.
"Have you swallows in England?"

"I
believe there are some at certain seasons. But doubtless they
have not
the same
symbolical value for the English. In Germany--"

"I
have never been to England," interrupted Fraulein Sonia, "but
I have
many
English acquaintances. They are so cold!" She
shivered.

"Fish-blooded,"
snapped Frau Godowska. "Without soul, without heart,
without
grace. But you cannot equal their dress materials. I
spent a week
in
Brighton twenty years ago, and the travelling cape I bought there is
not
yet worn
out--the one you wrap the hot-water bottle in, Sonia. My
lamented
husband,
your father, Sonia, knew a great deal about England. But the
more
he knew
about it the oftener he remarked to me, 'England is merely an
island of
beef flesh swimming in a warm gulf sea of gravy.' Such a
brilliant
way of putting things. Do you remember, Sonia?"

"I
forget nothing, mamma," answered Sonia.

Said the
Herr Professor: "That is the proof of your calling,
gnadiges
Fraulein.
Now I wonder--and this is a very interesting speculation--is
memory a
blessing or--excuse the word--a curse?"

Frau
Godowska looked into the distance, then the corners of her mouth
dropped
and her skin puckered. She began to shed tears.

"Ach
Gott! Gracious lady, what have I said?" exclaimed the Herr
Professor.

Sonia took
her mother's hand. "Do you know," she said, "to-night
it is
stewed
carrots and nut tart for supper. Suppose we go in and take our
places,"
her sidelong, tragic stare accusing the Professor and me the
while.

I followed
them across the lawn and up the steps. Frau Godowska was
murmuring,
"Such a wonderful, beloved man"; with her disengaged hand
Fraulein
Sonia was arranging the sweet pea "garniture."

...

"A
concert for the benefit of afflicted Catholic infants will take place
in
the salon
at eight-thirty P.M. Artists: Fraulein Sonia Godowska,
from
Vienna;
Herr Professor Windberg and his trombone; Frau Oberlehrer Weidel,
and
others."

This
notice was tied round the neck of the melancholy stag's head in the
dining-room.
It graced him like a red and white dinner bib for days before
the event,
causing the Herr Professor to bow before it and say "good
appetite"
until we sickened of his pleasantry and left the smiling to be
done by
the waiter, who was paid to be pleasing to the guests.

On the
appointed day the married ladies sailed about the pension dressed
like
upholstered chairs, and the unmarried ladies like draped muslin
dressing-table
covers. Frau Godowska pinned a rose in the centre of her
reticule;
another blossom was tucked in the mazy folds of a white
antimacassar
thrown across her breast. The gentlemen wore black coats,
white silk
ties and ferny buttonholes tickling the chin.

The floor
of the salon was freshly polished, chairs and benches arranged,
and a row
of little flags strung across the ceiling--they flew and jigged
in the
draught with all the enthusiasm of family washing. It was
arranged
that I
should sit beside Frau Godowska, and that the Herr Professor and
Sonia
should join us when their share of the concert was over.

"That
will make you feel quite one of the performers," said the Herr
Professor
genially. "It is a great pity that the English nation is
so
unmusical.
Never mind! To-night you shall hear something--we have
discovered
a nest of talent during the rehearsals."

"What
do you intend to recite, Fraulein Sonia?"

She shook
back her hair. "I never know until the last moment.
When I come
on the
stage I wait for one moment and then I have the sensation as though
something
struck me here,"--she placed her hand upon her collar
brooch--"and...words
come!"

"Bend
down a moment," whispered her mother. "Sonia, love,
your skirt
safety-pin
is showing at the back. Shall I come outside and fasten it
properly
for you, or will you do it yourself?"

"Oh,
mamma, please don't say such things," Sonia flushed and grew
very
angry.
"You know how sensitive I am to the slightest unsympathetic
impression
at a time like this...I would rather my skirt dropped off my
body--"

"Sonia--my
heart!"

A bell
tinkled.

The waiter
came in and opened the piano. In the heated excitement of the
moment he
entirely forgot what was fitting, and flicked the keys with the
grimy
table napkin he carried over his arm. The Frau Oberlehrer
tripped on
the
platform followed by a very young gentleman, who blew his nose twice
before he
hurled his handkerchief into the bosom of the piano.

"Yes,
I know you have no love for me,
And
no forget-me-not.
No
love, no heart, and no forget-me-not."

sang the
Frau Oberlehrer, in a voice that seemed to issue from her
forgotten
thimble and have nothing to do with her.

"Ach,
how sweet, how delicate," we cried, clapping her soothingly.
She
bowed as
though to say, "Yes, isn't it?" and retired, the very young
gentleman
dodging her train and scowling.

The piano
was closed, an arm-chair was placed in the centre of the
platform.
Fraulein Sonia drifted towards it. A breathless pause.
Then,
presumably,
the winged shaft struck her collar brooch. She implored us not
to go into
the woods in trained dresses, but rather as lightly draped as
possible,
and bed with her among the pine needles. Her loud, slightly
harsh
voice filled the salon. She dropped her arms over the back of
the
chair,
moving her lean hands from the wrists. We were thrilled and
silent.
The Herr
Professor, beside me, abnormally serious, his eyes bulging, pulled
at his
moustache ends. Frau Godowska adopted that peculiarly detached
attitude
of the proud parent. The only soul who remained untouched by
her
appeal was
the waiter, who leaned idly against the wall of the salon and
cleaned
his nails with the edge of a programme. He was "off duty"
and
intended
to show it.

"What
did I say?" shouted the Herr Professor under cover of tumultuous
applause,
"tem-per-ament! There you have it. She is a flame in
the heart
of a
lily. I know I am going to play well. It is my turn now.
I am
inspired.
Fraulein Sonia"--as that lady returned to us, pale and draped in
a large
shawl--"you are my inspiration. To-night you shall be the
soul of
my
trombone. Wait only."

To right
and left of us people bent over and whispered admiration down
Fraulein
Sonia's neck. She bowed in the grand style.

"I am
always successful," she said to me. "You see, when I
act I AM. In
Vienna, in
the plays of Ibsen we had so many bouquets that the cook had
three in
the kitchen. But it is difficult here. There is so little
magic.
Do you not
feel it? There is none of that mysterious perfume which floats
almost as
a visible thing from the souls of the Viennese audiences. My
spirit
starves for want of that." She leaned forward, chin on
hand.
"Starves,"
she repeated.

The
Professor appeared with his trombone, blew into it, held it up to one
eye,
tucked back his shirt cuffs and wallowed in the soul of Sonia
Godowska.
Such a sensation did he create that he was recalled to play a
Bavarian
dance, which he acknowledged was to be taken as a breathing
exercise
rather than an artistic achievement. Frau Godowska kept time to
it with a
fan.

Followed
the very young gentleman who piped in a tenor voice that he loved
somebody,
"with blood in his heart and a thousand pains."
Fraulein Sonia
acted a
poison scene with the assistance of her mother's pill vial and the
arm-chair
replaced by a "chaise longue"; a young girl scratched a
lullaby
on a young
fiddle; and the Herr Professor performed the last sacrificial
rites on
the altar of the afflicted children by playing the National
Anthem.

"Now
I must put mamma to bed," whispered Fraulein Sonia. "But
afterwards I
must take
a walk. It is imperative that I free my spirit in the open air
for a
moment. Would you come with me as far as the railway station
and
back?"

"Very
well, then, knock on my door when you're ready."

Thus the
modern soul and I found ourselves together under the stars.

"What
a night!" she said. "Do you know that poem of Sappho
about her hands
in the
stars...I am curiously sapphic. And this is so remarkable--not
only
am I
sapphic, I find in all the works of all the greatest writers,
especially
in their unedited letters, some touch, some sign of myself--some
resemblance,
some part of myself, like a thousand reflections of my own
hands in a
dark mirror."

"But
what a bother," said I.

"I do
not know what you mean by 'bother'; is it rather the curse of my
genius..."
She paused suddenly, staring at me. "Do you know my
tragedy?"
she asked.

I shook my
head.

"My
tragedy is my mother. Living with her I live with the coffin of
my
unborn
aspirations. You heard that about the safety-pin to-night.
It may
seem to
you a little thing, but it ruined my three first gestures. They
were--"

"Impaled
on a safety-pin," I suggested.

"Yes,
exactly that. And when we are in Vienna I am the victim of
moods,
you know.
I long to do wild, passionate things. And mamma says, 'Please
pour out
my mixture first.' Once I remember I flew into a rage and threw
a
washstand
jug out of the window. Do you know what she said? 'Sonia,
it is
not so
much throwing things out of windows, if only you would--'"

"Choose
something smaller?" said I.

"No...'tell
me about it beforehand.' Humiliating! And I do not see
any
possible
light out of this darkness."

"Why
don't you join a touring company and leave your mother in Vienna?"

"What!
Leave my poor, little, sick, widowed mother in Vienna! Sooner
than
that I
would drown myself. I love my mother as I love nobody else in
the
world--nobody
and nothing! Do you think it is impossible to love one's
tragedy?
'Out of my great sorrows I make my little songs,' that is Heine
or
myself."

"Oh,
well, that's all right," I said cheerfully.

"'But
it is not all right!"

I
suggested we should turn back. We turned.

"Sometimes
I think the solution lies in marriage," said Fraulein Sonia.
"If I
find a simple, peaceful man who adores me and will look after mamma
--a man
who would be for me a pillow--for genius cannot hope to mate--I
shall
marry him...You know the Herr Professor has paid me very marked
attentions."

"Oh,
Fraulein Sonia," I said, very pleased with myself, "why not
marry him
to your
mother?" We were passing the hairdresser's shop at the
moment.
Fraulein
Sonia clutched my arm.

"You,
you," she stammered. "The cruelty. I am going
to faint. Mamma to
marry
again before I marry--the indignity. I am going to faint here
and
now."

I was
frightened. "You can't," I said, shaking her.

"Come
back to the pension and faint as much as you please. But you
can't
faint
here. All the shops are closed. There is nobody about.
Please
don't be
so foolish."

She did
not move. I began to walk home, but each time I looked behind
me I
saw the
dark form of the modern soul prone before the hairdresser's window.
Finally I
ran, and rooted out the Herr Professor from his room. "Fraulein
Sonia has
fainted," I said crossly.

"Du
lieber Gott! Where? How?"

"Outside
the hairdresser's shop in the Station Road."

"Jesus
and Maria! Has she no water with her?"--he seized his
carafe--
"nobody
beside her?"

"Nothing."

"Where
is my coat? No matter, I shall catch a cold on the chest.
Willingly,
I shall catch one...You are ready to come with me?"

"No,"
I said; "you can take the waiter."

"But
she must have a woman. I cannot be so indelicate as to attempt
to
loosen her
stays."

"Modern
souls oughtn't to wear them," said I. He pushed past me
and
clattered
down the stairs.

...
When I
came down to breakfast next morning there were two places vacant at
table.
Fraulein Sonia and Herr Professor had gone off for a day's
excursion
in the woods.

I
wondered.

7.
AT LEHMANN'S.

Certainly
Sabina did not find life slow. She was on the trot from early
morning
until late at night. At five o'clock she tumbled out of bed,
buttoned
on her clothes, wearing a long-sleeved alpaca pinafore over her
black
frock, and groped her way downstairs into the kitchen.

Anna, the
cook, had grown so fat during the summer that she adored her bed
because
she did not have to wear her corsets there, but could spread as
much as
she liked, roll about under the great mattress, calling upon Jesus
and Holy
Mary and Blessed Anthony himself that her life was not fit for a
pig in a
cellar.

Sabina was
new to her work. Pink colour still flew in her cheeks; there
was a
little dimple on the left side of her mouth that even when she was
most
serious, most absorbed, popped out and gave her away. And Anna
blessed
that dimple. It meant an extra half-hour in bed for her; it
made
Sabina
light the fire, turn out the kitchen and wash endless cups and
saucers
that had been left over from the evening before. Hans,
the
scullery
boy, did not come until seven. He was the son of the butcher--a
mean,
undersized child very much like one of his father's sausages, Sabina
thought.
His red face was covered with pimples, and his nails
indescribably
filthy. When Herr Lehmann himself told Hans to get a hairpin
and clean
them he said they were stained from birth because his mother had
always got
so inky doing the accounts--and Sabina believed him and pitied
him.

Winter had
come very early to Mindelbau. By the end of October the streets
were
banked waist-high with snow, and the greater number of the "Cure
Guests,"
sick unto death of cold water and herbs, had departed in nothing
approaching
peace. So the large salon was shut at Lehmann's and the
breakfast-room
was all the accommodation the cafe afforded. Here the floor
had to be
washed over, the tables rubbed, coffee-cups set out, each with
its little
china platter of sugar, and newspapers and magazines hung on
their
hooks along the walls before Herr Lehmann appeared at seven-thirty
and opened
business.

As a rule
his wife served in the shop leading into the cafe, but she had
chosen the
quiet season to have a baby, and, a big woman at the best of
times, she
had grown so enormous in the process that her husband told her
she looked
unappetising, and had better remain upstairs and sew.

Sabina
took on the extra work without any thought of extra pay. She
loved
to stand
behind the counter, cutting up slices of Anna's marvellous
chocolate-spotted
confections, or doing up packets of sugar almonds in pink
and blue
striped bags.
"You'll
get varicose veins, like me," said Anna. "That's what
the Frau's
got, too.
No wonder the baby doesn't come! All her swelling's got into
her
legs." And Hans was immensely interested.

During the
morning business was comparatively slack. Sabina answered the
shop bell,
attended to a few customers who drank a liqueur to warm their
stomachs
before the midday meal, and ran upstairs now and again to ask the
Frau if
she wanted anything. But in the afternoon six or seven choice
spirits
played cards, and everybody who was anybody drank tea or coffee.

"Sabina...Sabina..."

She flew
from one table to the other, counting out handfuls of small
change,
giving orders to Anna through the "slide," helping the men
with
their
heavy coats, always with that magical child air about her, that
delightful
sense of perpetually attending a party.

"How
is the Frau Lehmann?" the women would whisper.

"She
feels rather low, but as well as can be expected," Sabina would
answer,
nodding confidentially.
Frau
Lehmann's bad time was approaching. Anna and her friends
referred to
it as her
"journey to Rome," and Sabina longed to ask questions, yet,
being
ashamed of
her ignorance, was silent, trying to puzzle it out for herself.
She knew
practically nothing except that the Frau had a baby inside her,
which had
to come out--very painful indeed. One could not have one
without
a
husband--that she also realised. But what had the man got to do
with it?
So she
wondered as she sat mending tea towels in the evening, head bent
over her
work, light shining on her brown curls. Birth--what was it?
wondered
Sabina. Death--such a simple thing. She had a little
picture of
her dead
grandmother dressed in a black silk frock, tired hands clasping
the
crucifix that dragged between her flattened breasts, mouth curiously
tight, yet
almost secretly smiling. But the grandmother had been born
once--that
was the important fact.

As she sat
there one evening, thinking, the Young Man entered the cafe, and
called for
a glass of port wine. Sabina rose slowly. The long day
and the
hot room
made her feel a little languid, but as she poured out the wine she
felt the
Young Man's eyes fixed on her, looked down at him and dimpled.

"It's
cold out," she said, corking the bottle.

The Young
Man ran his hands through his snow-powdered hair and laughed.

"I
wouldn't call it exactly tropical," he said, "But you're
very snug in
here--look
as though you've been asleep."

Very
languid felt Sabina in the hot room, and the Young Man's voice was
strong and
deep. She thought she had never seen anybody who looked so
strong--as
though he could take up the table in one hand--and his restless
gaze
wandering over her face and figure gave her a curious thrill deep in
her body,
half pleasure, half pain...She wanted to stand there, close
beside
him, while he drank his wine. A little silence followed.
Then he
took a
book out of his pocket, and Sabina went back to her sewing.
Sitting
there in
the corner, she listened to the sound of the leaves being turned
and the
loud ticking of the clock that hung over the gilt mirror. She
wanted to
look at him again--there was a something about him, in his deep
voice,
even in the way his clothes fitted. From the room above she
heard
the heavy
dragging sound of Frau Lehmann's footsteps, and again the old
thoughts
worried Sabina. If she herself should one day look like
that--feel
like that! Yet it would be very sweet to have a little baby to
dress and
jump up and down.

"Fraulein--what's
your name--what are you smiling at?" called the Young
Man.

She
blushed and looked up, hands quiet in her lap, looked across the
empty
tables and
shook her head.

"Come
here, and I'll show you a picture," he commanded.

She went
and stood beside him. He opened the book, and Sabina saw a
coloured
sketch of a naked girl sitting on the edge of a great, crumpled
bed, a
man's opera hat on the back of her head.

He put his
hand over the body, leaving only the face exposed, then
scrutinised
Sabina closely.

"Well?"

"What
do you mean?" she asked, knowing perfectly well.

"Why,
it might be your own photograph--the face, I mean--that's as far as I
can
judge."

"But
the hair's done differently," said Sabina, laughing. She
threw back
her head,
and the laughter bubbled in her round white throat.

"It's
rather a nice picture, don't you think?" he asked. But she
was
looking at
a curious ring he wore on the hand that covered the girl's body,
and only
nodded.

"Ever
seen anything like it before?"

"Oh,
there's plenty of those funny ones in the illustrated papers."

"How
would you like to have your picture taken that way?"

"Me?
I'd never let anybody see it. Besides, I haven't got a hat like
that!"

"That's
easily remedied."

Again a
little silence, broken by Anna throwing up the slide.

Sabina ran
into the kitchen.

"Here,
take this milk and egg up to the Frau," said Anna. "Who've
you got
in there?"

"Got
such a funny man! I think he's a little gone here,"
tapping her
forehead.

Upstairs
in the ugly room the Frau sat sewing, a black shawl round her
shoulders,
her feet encased in red woollen slippers. The girl put the milk
on a table
by her, then stood, polishing a spoon on her apron.

"You
go downstairs, leave me alone. Tell Anna not to let Hans grub
the
sugar--give
him one on the ear."

"Ugly--ugly--ugly,"
muttered Sabina, returning to the cafe where the Young
Man stood
coat-buttoned, ready for departure.

"I'll
come again to-morrow," said he. "Don't twist your
hair back so
tightly;
it will lose all its curl."

"Well,
you are a funny one," she said. "Good night."

By the
time Sabina was ready for bed Anna was snoring. She brushed out
her
long hair
and gathered it in her hands...Perhaps it would be a pity if it
lost all
its curl. Then she looked down at her straight chemise, and
drawing it
off, sat down on the side of the bed.

"I
wish," she whispered, smiling sleepily, "there was a great
big
looking-glass
in this room."

Lying down
in the darkness, she hugged her little body.

"I
wouldn't be the Frau for one hundred marks--not for a thousand marks.
To look
like that."

And
half-dreaming, she imagined herself heaving up in her chair with the
port wine
bottle in her hand as the Young Man entered the cafe.

Cold and
dark the next morning. Sabina woke, tired, feeling as though
something
heavy had been pressing under her heart all night. There was a
sound of
footsteps shuffling along the passage. Herr Lehmann! She
must
have
overslept herself. Yes, he was rattling the door-handle.

"One
moment, one moment," she called, dragging on her stockings.

"Bina,
tell Anna to go to the Frau--but quickly. I must ride for the
nurse."

"Yes,
yes!" she cried. "Has it come?"

But he had
gone, and she ran over to Anna and shook her by the shoulder.

"The
Frau--the baby--Herr Lehmann for the nurse," she stuttered.

"Name
of God!" said Anna, flinging herself out of bed.

No
complaints to-day. Importance--enthusiasm in Anna's whole
bearing.

"You
run downstairs and light the oven. Put on a pan of
water"--speaking
to an
imaginary sufferer as she fastened her blouse--"Yes, yes, I
know--we
must be
worse before we are better--I'm coming--patience."

It was
dark all that day. Lights were turned on immediately the cafe
opened,
and business was very brisk. Anna, turned out of the Frau's
room
by the
nurse, refused to work, and sat in a corner nursing herself,
listening
to sounds overhead. Hans was more sympathetic than Sabina.
He
also
forsook work, and stood by the window, picking his nose.

"But
why must I do everything?" said Sabina, washing glasses.
"I can't
help the
Frau; she oughtn't to take such a time about it."

"Listen,"
said Anna, "they've moved her into the back bedroom above here,
so as not
to disturb the people. That was a groan--that one!"

"Two
small beers," shouted Herr Lehmann through the slide.

"One
moment, one moment."

At eight
o'clock the cafe was deserted. Sabina sat down in the corner
without
her sewing. Nothing seemed to have happened to the Frau.
A doctor
had
come--that was all.

"Ach,"
said Sabina. "I think no more of it. I listen no
more. Ach, I
would like
to go away--I hate this talk. I will not hear it. No, it
is
too
much." She leaned both elbows on the table--cupped her
face in her
hands and
pouted.

But the
outer door suddenly opening, she sprang to her feet and laughed.
It was the
Young Man again. He ordered more port, and brought no book this
time.

"Don't
go and sit miles away," he grumbled. "I want to be
amused. And
here, take
my coat. Can't you dry it somewhere?--snowing again."

"There's
a warm place--the ladies' cloak-room," she said. "I'll
take it in
there--just
by the kitchen."

She felt
better, and quite happy again.

"I'll
come with you," he said. "I'll see where you put it."

And that
did not seem at all extraordinary. She laughed and beckoned to
him.

"In
here," she cried. "Feel how warm. I'll put more
wood on that oven.
It doesn't
matter, they're all busy upstairs."

She knelt
down on the floor, and thrust the wood into the oven, laughing at
her own
wicked extravagance.

The Frau
was forgotten, the stupid day was forgotten. Here was someone
beside her
laughing, too. They were together in the little warm room
stealing
Herr Lehmann's wood. It seemed the most exciting adventure in
the
world.
She wanted to go on laughing--or burst out crying--or--or--catch
hold of
the Young Man.

"What
a fire," she shrieked, stretching out her hands.

"Here's
a hand; pull up," said the Young Man. "There, now,
you'll catch it
to-morrow."

They stood
opposite to each other, hands still clinging. And again that
strange
tremor thrilled Sabina.

"Look
here," he said roughly, "are you a child, or are you
playing at being
one?"

"I--I--"

Laughter
ceased. She looked up at him once, then down at the floor, and
began
breathing like a frightened little animal.

He pulled
her closer still and kissed her mouth.

"Na,
what are you doing?" she whispered.

He let go
her hands, he placed his on her breasts, and the room seemed to
swim round
Sabina. Suddenly, from the room above, a frightful, tearing
shriek.

She
wrenched herself away, tightened herself, drew herself up.

"Who
did that--who made that noise?"

...
In the
silence the thin wailing of a baby.

"Achk!"
shrieked Sabina, rushing from the room.

8.
THE LUFT BAD.

I think it
must be the umbrellas which make us look ridiculous.

When I was
admitted into the enclosure for the first time, and saw my
fellow-bathers
walking about very nearly "in their nakeds," it struck me
that the
umbrellas gave a distinctly "Little Black Sambo" touch.

Ridiculous
dignity in holding over yourself a green cotton thing with a red
parroquet
handle when you are dressed in nothing larger than a
handkerchief.

There are
no trees in the "Luft Bad." It boasts a collection of
plain,
wooden
cells, a bath shelter, two swings and two odd clubs--one, presumably
the lost
property of Hercules or the German army, and the other to be used
with
safety in the cradle.

And there
in all weathers we take the air--walking, or sitting in little
companies
talking over each other's ailments and measurements and ills that
flesh is
heir to.

A high
wooden wall compasses us all about; above it the pine-trees look
down a
little superciliously, nudging each other in a way that is
peculiarly
trying to a debutante. Over the wall, on the right side, is the
men's
section. We hear them chopping down trees and sawing through
planks,
dashing
heavy weights to the ground, and singing part songs. Yes, they
take it
far more seriously.

On the
first day I was conscious of my legs, and went back into my cell
three
times to look at my watch, but when a woman with whom I had played
chess for
three weeks cut me dead, I took heart and joined a circle.

We lay
curled on the ground while a Hungarian lady of immense proportions
told us
what a beautiful tomb she had bought for her second husband.

"A
vault it is," she said, "with nice black railings.
And so large that I
can go
down there and walk about. Both their photographs are there,
with
two very
handsome wreaths sent me by my first husband's brother. There
is
an
enlargement of a family group photograph, too, and an illuminated
address
presented to my first husband on his marriage. I am often
there;
it makes
such a pleasant excursion for a fine Saturday afternoon."

She
suddenly lay down flat on her back, took in six long breaths, and sat
up again.

"The
death agony was dreadful," she said brightly; "of the
second, I mean.
The
'first' was run into by a furniture wagon, and had fifty marks stolen
out of a
new waistcoat pocket, but the 'second' was dying for sixty-seven
hours.
I never ceased crying once--not even to put the children to bed."

A young
Russian, with a "bang" curl on her forehead, turned to me.

"Can
you do the 'Salome' dance?" she asked. "I can."

"How
delightful," I said.

"Shall
I do it now? Would you like to see me?"

She sprang
to her feet, executed a series of amazing contortions for the
next ten
minutes, and then paused, panting, twisting her long hair.

"Isn't
that nice?" she said. "And now I am perspiring so
splendidly. I
shall go
and take a bath."

Opposite
to me was the brownest woman I have ever seen, lying on her back,
her arms
clasped over her head.

"How
long have you been here to-day?" she was asked.

"Oh,
I spend the day here now," she answered. "I am making
my own 'cure,'
and living
entirely on raw vegetables and nuts, and each day I feel my
spirit is
stronger and purer. After all, what can you expect? The
majority
of us are walking about with pig corpuscles and oxen fragments in
our
brain. The wonder is the world is as good as it is. Now I
live on the
simple,
provided food"--she pointed to a little bag beside her--"a
lettuce,
a carrot,
a potato, and some nuts are ample, rational nourishment. I wash
them under
the tap and eat them raw, just as they come from the harmless
earth--fresh
and uncontaminated."

"Do
you take nothing else all day?" I cried.

"Water.
And perhaps a banana if I wake in the night." She turned
round
and leaned
on one elbow. "You over-eat yourself dreadfully," she
said;
"shamelessly!
How can you expect the Flame of the Spirit to burn brightly
under
layers of superfluous flesh?"

I wished
she would not stare at me, and thought of going to look at my
watch
again when a little girl wearing a string of coral beads joined us.

"The
poor Frau Hauptmann cannot join us to-day," she said; "she
has come
out in
spots all over on account of her nerves. She was very excited
yesterday
after having written two post-cards."

"A
delicate woman," volunteered the Hungarian, "but pleasant.
Fancy, she
has a
separate plate for each of her front teeth! But she has no
right to
let her
daughters wear such short sailor suits. They sit about on
benches,
crossing
their legs in a most shameless manner. What are you going to do
this
afternoon, Fraulein Anna?"

"Oh,"
said the Coral Necklace, "the Herr Oberleutnant has asked me to
go
with him
to Landsdorf. He must buy some eggs there to take home to his
mother.
He saves a penny on eight eggs by knowing the right peasants to
bargain
with."

"Are
you an American?" said the Vegetable Lady, turning to me.

"No."

"Then
you are an Englishwoman?"

"Well,
hardly--"

"You
must be one of the two; you cannot help it. I have seen you
walking
alone
several times. You wear your--"

I got up
and climbed on to the swing. The air was sweet and cool,
rushing
past my
body. Above, white clouds trailed delicately through the blue
sky.
From the
pine forest streamed a wild perfume, the branches swayed together,
rhythmically,
sonorously. I felt so light and free and happy--so childish!
I wanted
to poke my tongue out at the circle on the grass, who, drawing
close
together, were whispering meaningly.

"Perhaps
you do not know," cried a voice from one of the cells, "to
swing
is very
upsetting for the stomach? A friend of mine could keep nothing
down for
three weeks after exciting herself so."

I went to
the bath shelter and was hosed.

As I
dressed, someone tapped on the wall.

"Do
you know," said a voice, "there is a man who LIVES in the
Luft Bad next
door?
He buries himself up to the armpits in mud and refuses to believe in
the
Trinity."

The
umbrellas are the saving grace of the Luft Bad. Now when I go,
I take
my
husband's "storm" gamp and sit in a corner, hiding behind
it.

Not that I
am in the least ashamed of my legs.

9.
A BIRTHDAY.

Andreas
Binzer woke slowly. He turned over on the narrow bed and
stretched
himself--yawned--opening
his mouth as widely as possible and bringing his
teeth
together afterwards with a sharp "click." The sound
of that click
fascinated
him; he repeated it quickly several times, with a snapping
movement
of the jaws. What teeth! he thought. Sound as a bell,
every man
jack of
them. Never had one out, never had one stopped. That
comes of no
tomfoolery
in eating, and a good regular brushing night and morning. He
raised
himself on his left elbow and waved his right arm over the side of
the bed to
feel for the chair where he put his watch and chain overnight.
No chair
was there--of course, he'd forgotten, there wasn't a chair in this
wretched
spare room. Had to put the confounded thing under his pillow.
"Half-past
eight, Sunday, breakfast at nine--time for the bath"--his brain
ticked to
the watch. He sprang out of bed and went over to the window.
The
venetian blind was broken, hung fan-shaped over the upper
pane..."That
blind must
be mended. I'll get the office boy to drop in and fix it on his
way home
to-morrow--he's a good hand at blinds. Give him twopence and
he'll do
it as well as a carpenter...Anna could do it herself if she was
all
right. So would I, for the matter of that, but I don't like to
trust
myself on
rickety step-ladders." He looked up at the sky: it
shone,
strangely
white, unflecked with cloud; he looked down at the row of garden
strips and
backyards. The fence of these gardens was built along the edge
of a
gully, spanned by an iron suspension bridge, and the people had a
wretched
habit of throwing their empty tins over the fence into the gully.
Just like
them, of course! Andreas started counting the tins, and
decided,
viciously,
to write a letter to the papers about it and sign it--sign it in
full.

The
servant girl came out of their back door into the yard, carrying his
boots.
She threw one down on the ground, thrust her hand into the other,
and stared
at it, sucking in her cheeks. Suddenly she bent forward, spat
on the
toecap, and started polishing with a brush rooted out of her apron
pocket..."Slut
of a girl! Heaven knows what infectious disease may be
breeding
now in that boot. Anna must get rid of that girl--even if she
has
to do
without one for a bit--as soon as she's up and about again. The
way
she
chucked one boot down and then spat upon the other! She didn't
care
whose
boots she'd got hold of. SHE had no false notions of the
respect due
to the
master of the house." He turned away from the window and
switched
his bath
towel from the washstand rail, sick at heart. "I'm too
sensitive
for a
man--that's what's the matter with me. Have been from the
beginning,
and will
be to the end."

There was
a gentle knock at the door and his mother came in. She closed
the door
after her and leant against it. Andreas noticed that her cap
was
crooked,
and a long tail of hair hung over her shoulder. He went forward
and kissed
her.

"Good
morning, mother; how's Anna?"

The old
woman spoke quickly, clasping and unclasping her hands.

"Andreas,
please go to Doctor Erb as soon as you are dressed."

"Why,"
he said, "is she bad?"

Frau
Binzer nodded, and Andreas, watching her, saw her face suddenly
change; a
fine network of wrinkles seemed to pull over it from under the
skin
surface.

"Sit
down on the bed a moment," he said. "Been up all
night?"

"Yes.
No, I won't sit down, I must go back to her. Anna has been in
pain
all
night. She wouldn't have you disturbed before because she said
you
looked so
run down yesterday. You told her you had caught a cold and been
very
worried."

Straightway
Andreas felt that he was being accused.

"Well,
she made me tell her, worried it out of me; you know the way she
does."

Again Frau
Binzer nodded.

"Oh
yes, I know. She says, is your cold better, and there's a warm
undervest
for you in the left-hand corner of the big drawer."

They went
into the passage. As Frau Binzer opened the door of the front
bedroom, a
long wail came from the room.

That
shocked and terrified Andreas. He dashed into the bathroom,
turned on
both taps
as far as they would go, cleaned his teeth and pared his nails
while the
water was running.

"Frightful
business, frightful business," he heard himself whispering.
"And
I can't understand it. It isn't as though it were her
first--it's her
third.
Old Schafer told me, yesterday, his wife simply 'dropped' her
fourth.
Anna ought to have had a qualified nurse. Mother gives way to
her.
Mother spoils her. I wonder what she meant by saying I'd
worried
Anna
yesterday. Nice remark to make to a husband at a time like
this.
Unstrung,
I suppose--and my sensitiveness again."

When he
went into the kitchen for his boots, the servant girl was bent over
the stove,
cooking breakfast. "Breathing into that, now, I suppose,"
thought
Andreas, and was very short with the servant girl. She did not
notice.
She was full of terrified joy and importance in the goings on
upstairs.
She felt she was learning the secrets of life with every breath
she drew.
Had laid the table that morning saying, "Boy," as she put
down
the first
dish, "Girl," as she placed the second--it had worked out
with
the
saltspoon to "Boy." "For two pins I'd tell the
master that, to comfort
him,
like," she decided. But the Master gave her no opening.

"Put
an extra cup and saucer on the table," he said; "the doctor
may want
some
coffee."

"The
doctor, sir?" The servant girl whipped a spoon out of a
pan, and
spilt two
drops of grease on the stove. "Shall I fry something
extra?"
But the
master had gone, slamming the door after him. He walked down
the
street--there
was nobody about at all--dead and alive this place on a
Sunday
morning. As he crossed the suspension bridge a strong stench of
fennel and
decayed refuse streamed from the gulley, and again Andreas began
concocting
a letter. He turned into the main road. The shutters were
still up
before the shops. Scraps of newspaper, hay, and fruit skins
strewed
the pavement; the gutters were choked with the leavings of Saturday
night.
Two dogs sprawled in the middle of the road, scuffling and biting.
Only the
public-house at the corner was open; a young barman slopped water
over the
doorstep.

Fastidiously,
his lips curling, Andreas picked his way through the water.
"Extraordinary
how I am noticing things this morning. It's partly the
effect of
Sunday. I loathe a Sunday when Anna's tied by the leg and the
children
are away. On Sunday a man has the right to expect his family.
Everything
here's filthy, the whole place might be down with the plague,
and will
be, too, if this street's not swept away. I'd like to have a
hand
on the
government ropes." He braced his shoulders. "Now
for this doctor."

"Doctor
Erb is at breakfast," the maid informed him. She showed
him into
the
waiting-room, a dark and musty place, with some ferns under a
glass-case
by the window. "He says he won't be a minute, please, sir,
and
there is a
paper on the table."

"Unhealthy
hole," thought Binzer, walking over to the window and drumming
his
fingers on the glass fern-shade. "At breakfast, is he?
That's the
mistake I
made: turning out early on an empty stomach."

A milk
cart rattled down the street, the driver standing at the back,
cracking a
whip; he wore an immense geranium flower stuck in the lapel of
his coat.
Firm as a rock he stood, bending back a little in the swaying
cart.
Andreas craned his neck to watch him all the way down the road, even
after he
had gone, listening for the sharp sound of those rattling cans.

"H'm,
not much wrong with him," he reflected. "Wouldn't
mind a taste of
that life
myself. Up early, work all over by eleven o'clock, nothing to
do
but loaf
about all day until milking time." Which he knew was an
exaggeration,
but he wanted to pity himself.
The maid
opened the door, and stood aside for Doctor Erb. Andreas
wheeled
round; the
two men shook hands.

"Well,
Binzer," said the doctor jovially, brushing some crumbs from a
pearl-coloured
waistcoat, "son and heir becoming importunate?"

Up went
Binzer's spirits with a bound. Son and heir, by Jove! He
was glad
to have to
deal with a man again. And a sane fellow this, who came across
this sort
of thing every day of the week.

"That's
about the measure of it, Doctor," he answered, smiling and
picking
up his
hat. "Mother dragged me out of bed this morning with
imperative
orders to
bring you along."

"Gig
will be round in a minute. Drive back with me, won't you?
Extraordinary,
sultry day; you're as red as a beetroot already."

Andreas
affected to laugh. The doctor had one annoying habit--imagined
he
had the
right to poke fun at everybody simply because he was a doctor.
"The
man's riddled with conceit, like all these professionals,"
Andreas
decided.

"What
sort of night did Frau Binzer have?" asked the doctor.
"Ah, here's
the gig.
Tell me on the way up. Sit as near the middle as you can, will
you,
Binzer? Your weight tilts it over a bit one side--that's the
worst of
you
successful business men."

"Two
stone heavier than I, if he's a pound," thought Andreas.
"The man may
be all
right in his profession--but heaven preserve me."

"No;
I don't think she did," answered Andreas shortly. "To
tell you the
truth, I'm
not satisfied that she hasn't a nurse."

"Oh,
your mother's worth a dozen nurses," cried the doctor, with
immense
gusto.
"To tell you the truth, I'm not keen on nurses--too raw--raw as
rump-steak.
They wrestle for a baby as though they were wrestling with
Death for
the body of Patroclus...Ever seen that picture by an English
artist.
Leighton? Wonderful thing--full of sinew!"

"There
he goes again," thought Andreas, "airing off his knowledge
to make a
fool of
me."

"Now
your mother--she's firm--she's capable. Does what she's told
with a
fund of
sympathy. Look at these shops we're passing--they're festering
sores.
How on earth this government can tolerate--"

"They're
not so bad--sound enough--only want a coat of paint."

The doctor
whistled a little tune and flicked the mare again.

"Well,
I hope the young shaver won't give his mother too much trouble,"
he
said.
"Here we are."

A skinny
little boy, who had been sliding up and down the back seat of the
gig,
sprang out and held the horse's head. Andreas went straight
into the
dining-room
and left the servant girl to take the doctor upstairs. He sat
down,
poured out some coffee, and bit through half a roll before helping
himself to
fish. Then he noticed there was no hot plate for the fish--the
whole
house was at sixes and sevens. He rang the bell, but the
servant
girl came
in with a tray holding a bowl of soup and a hot plate.

"I've
been keeping them on the stove," she simpered.

"Ah,
thanks, that's very kind of you." As he swallowed the soup
his heart
warmed to
this fool of a girl.

"Oh,
it's a good thing Doctor Erb has come," volunteered the servant
girl,
who was
bursting for want of sympathy.

"H'm,
h'm," said Andreas.

She waited
a moment, expectantly, rolling her eyes, then in full loathing
of menkind
went back to the kitchen and vowed herself to sterility.

Andreas
cleared the soup bowl, and cleared the fish. As he ate, the
room
slowly
darkened. A faint wind sprang up and beat the tree branches
against
the
window. The dining-room looked over the breakwater of the
harbour, and
the sea
swung heavily in rolling waves. Wind crept round the house,
moaning
drearily.

"We're
in for a storm. That means I'm boxed up here all day.
Well,
there's
one blessing; it'll clear the air." He heard the servant
girl
rushing
importantly round the house, slamming windows. Then he caught a
glimpse of
her in the garden, unpegging tea towels from the line across the
lawn.
She was a worker, there was no doubt about that. He took up a
book,
and
wheeled his arm-chair over to the window. But it was useless.
Too
dark to
read; he didn't believe in straining his eyes, and gas at ten
o'clock in
the morning seemed absurd. So he slipped down in the chair,
leaned his
elbows on the padded arms and gave himself up, for once, to idle
dreaming.
"A boy? Yes, it was bound to be a boy this time..."
"What's
your
family, Binzer?" "Oh, I've two girls and a boy!"
A very nice little
number.
Of course he was the last man to have a favourite child, but a man
needed a
son. "I'm working up the business for my son! Binzer
& Son! It
would mean
living very tight for the next ten years, cutting expenses as
fine as
possible; and then--"

A
tremendous gust of wind sprang upon the house, seized it, shook it,
dropped,
only to grip the more tightly. The waves swelled up along the
breakwater
and were whipped with broken foam. Over the white sky flew
tattered
streamers of grey cloud.

Andreas
felt quite relieved to hear Doctor Erb coming down the stairs; he
got up and
lit the gas.

"Mind
if I smoke in here?" asked Doctor Erb, lighting a cigarette
before
Andreas
had time to answer. "You don't smoke, do you? No
time to indulge
in
pernicious little habits!"

"How
is she now?" asked Andreas, loathing the man.

"Oh,
well as can be expected, poor little soul. She begged me to
come down
and have a
look at you. Said she knew you were worrying." With
laughing
eyes the
doctor looked at the breakfast-table. "Managed to peck a
bit, I
see, eh?"

"Hoo-wih!"
shouted the wind, shaking the window-sashes.

"Pity--this
weather," said Doctor Erb.

"Yes,
it gets on Anna's nerves, and it's just nerve she wants."

"Eh,
what's that?" retorted the doctor. "Nerve! Man
alive! She's got
twice the
nerve of you and me rolled into one. Nerve! she's nothing but
nerve.
A woman who works as she does about the house and has three
children
in four years thrown in with the dusting, so to speak!"

He pitched
his half-smoked cigarette into the fireplace and frowned at the
window.

"Now
HE'S accusing me," thought Andreas. "That's the
second time this
morning--first
mother and now this man taking advantage of my
sensitiveness."
He could not trust himself to speak, and rang the bell for
the
servant girl.

"Clear
away the breakfast things," he ordered. "I can't have
them messing
about on
the table till dinner!"

"Don't
be hard on the girl," coaxed Doctor Erb. "She's got
twice the work
to do
to-day."

At that
Binzer's anger blazed out.

"I'll
trouble you, Doctor, not to interfere between me and my servants!"
And he
felt a fool at the same moment for not saying "servant."

Doctor Erb
was not perturbed. He shook his head, thrust his hands into his
pockets,
and began balancing himself on toe and heel.

"You're
jagged by the weather," he said wryly, "nothing else.
A great
pity--this
storm. You know climate has an immense effect upon birth.
A
fine day
perks a woman--gives her heart for her business. Good weather
is
as
necessary to a confinement as it is to a washing day. Not
bad--that
last
remark of mine--for a professional fossil, eh?"

Andreas
made no reply.

"Well,
I'll be getting back to my patient. Why don't you take a walk,
and
clear your
head? That's the idea for you."

"No,"
he answered, "I won't do that; it's too rough."

He went
back to his chair by the window. While the servant girl cleared
away he
pretended to read...then his dreams! It seemed years since he
had
had the
time to himself to dream like that--he never had a breathing space.
Saddled
with work all day, and couldn't shake it off in the evening like
other
men. Besides, Anna was interested--they talked of practically
nothing
else together. Excellent mother she'd make for a boy; she had a
grip of
things.

Church
bells started ringing through the windy air, now sounding as though
from very
far away, then again as though all the churches in the town had
been
suddenly transplanted into their street. They stirred something
in
him, those
bells, something vague and tender. Just about that time Anna
would call
him from the hall. "Andreas, come and have your coat
brushed.
I'm
ready." Then off they would go, she hanging on his arm,
and looking up
at him.
She certainly was a little thing. He remembered once saying
when
they were
engaged, "Just as high as my heart," and she had jumped on
to a
stool and
pulled his head down, laughing. A kid in those days, younger
than her
children in nature, brighter, more "go" and "spirit"
in her. The
way she'd
run down the road to meet him after business! And the way she
laughed
when they were looking for a house. By Jove! that laugh of
hers!
At the
memory he grinned, then grew suddenly grave. Marriage certainly
changed a
woman far more than it did a man. Talk about sobering down.
She
had lost
all her go in two months! Well, once this boy business was over
she'd get
stronger. He began to plan a little trip for them. He'd
take
her away
and they'd loaf about together somewhere. After all, dash it,
they were
young still. She'd got into a groove; he'd have to force her
out
of it,
that's all.

He got up
and went into the drawing-room, carefully shut the door and took
Anna's
photograph from the top of the piano. She wore a white dress
with a
big bow of
some soft stuff under the chin, and stood, a little stiffly,
holding a
sheaf of artificial poppies and corn in her hands. Delicate she
looked
even then; her masses of hair gave her that look. She seemed to
droop
under the heavy braids of it, and yet she was smiling. Andreas
caught his
breath sharply. She was his wife--that girl. Posh! it had
only
been taken
four years ago. He held it close to him, bent forward and
kissed
it. Then rubbed the glass with the back of his hand. At
that
moment,
fainter than he had heard in the passage, more terrifying, Andreas
heard
again that wailing cry. The wind caught it up in mocking echo,
blew
it over
the house-tops, down the street, far away from him. He flung
out
his arms,
"I'm so damnably helpless," he said, and then, to the
picture,
"Perhaps
it's not as bad as it sounds; perhaps it is just my
sensitiveness."
In the half light of the drawing-room the smile seemed to
deepen in
Anna's portrait, and to become secret, even cruel. "No,"
he
reflected,
"that smile is not at all her happiest expression--it was a
mistake to
let her have it taken smiling like that. She doesn't look like
my
wife--like the mother of my son." Yes, that was it, she
did not look
like the
mother of a son who was going to be a partner in the firm. The
picture
got on his nerves; he held it in different lights, looked at it
from a
distance, sideways, spent, it seemed to Andreas afterwards, a whole
lifetime
trying to fit it in. The more he played with it the deeper grew
his
dislike of it. Thrice he carried it over to the fireplace and
decided
to chuck
it behind the Japanese umbrella in the grate; then he thought it
absurd to
waste an expensive frame. There was no good in beating about
the
bush.
Anna looked like a stranger--abnormal, a freak--it might be a
picture
taken just before or after death.

Suddenly
he realised that the wind had dropped, that the whole house was
still,
terribly still. Cold and pale, with a disgusting feeling that
spiders
were creeping up his spine and across his face, he stood in the
centre of
the drawing-room, hearing Doctor Erb's footsteps descending the
stairs.

He saw
Doctor Erb come into the room; the room seemed to change into a
great
glass bowl that spun round, and Doctor Erb seemed to swim through
this glass
bowl towards him, like a goldfish in a pearl-coloured waistcoat.

"My
beloved wife has passed away!" He wanted to shout it out
before the
doctor
spoke.

"Well,
by God! Nobody can accuse ME of not knowing what suffering is,"
he
said.

10.
THE CHILD-WHO-WAS-TIRED.

She was
just beginning to walk along a little white road with tall black
trees on
either side, a little road that led to nowhere, and where nobody
walked at
all, when a hand gripped her shoulder, shook her, slapped her
ear.

"Oh,
oh, don't stop me," cried the Child-Who-Was-Tired. "Let
me go."

"Get
up, you good-for-nothing brat," said a voice; "get up and
light the
oven or
I'll shake every bone out of your body."

With an
immense effort she opened her eyes, and saw the Frau standing by,
the baby
bundled under one arm. The three other children who shared the
same bed
with the Child-Who-Was-Tired, accustomed to brawls, slept on
peacefully.
In a corner of the room the Man was fastening his braces.

"What
do you mean by sleeping like this the whole night through--like a
sack of
potatoes? You've let the baby wet his bed twice."

She did
not answer, but tied her petticoat string, and buttoned on her
plaid
frock with cold, shaking fingers.

"There,
that's enough. Take the baby into the kitchen with you, and
heat
that cold
coffee on the spirit lamp for the master, and give him the loaf
of black
bread out of the table drawer. Don't guzzle it yourself or I'll
know."

The Frau
staggered across the room, flung herself on to her bed, drawing
the pink
bolster round her shoulders.

It was
almost dark in the kitchen. She laid the baby on the wooden
settle,
covering
him with a shawl, then poured the coffee from the earthenware jug
into the
saucepan, and set it on the spirit lamp to boil.

"I'm
sleepy," nodded the Child-Who-Was-Tired, kneeling on the floor
and
splitting
the damp pine logs into little chips. "That's why I'm not
awake."

The oven
took a long time to light. Perhaps it was cold, like herself,
and
sleepy...Perhaps
it had been dreaming of a little white road with black
trees on
either side, a little road that led to nowhere.

Then the
door was pulled violently open and the Man strode in.

"Here,
what are you doing, sitting on the floor?" he shouted.
"Give me my
coffee.
I've got to be off. Ugh! You haven't even washed over the
table."

She sprang
to her feet, poured his coffee into an enamel cup, and gave him
bread and
a knife, then, taking a wash rag from the sink, smeared over the
black
linoleumed table.

"Swine
of a day--swine's life," mumbled the Man, sitting by the table
and
staring
out of the window at the bruised sky, which seemed to bulge heavily
over the
dull land. He stuffed his mouth with bread and then swilled it
down with
the coffee.

The Child
drew a pail of water, turned up her sleeves, frowning the while
at her
arms, as if to scold them for being so thin, so much like little
stunted
twigs, and began to mop over the floor.

"Stop
sousing about the water while I'm here," grumbled the Man.
"Stop the
baby
snivelling; it's been going on like that all night."

The Child
gathered the baby into her lap and sat rocking him.

"Ts--ts--ts,"
she said. "He's cutting his eye teeth, that's what makes
him
cry so.
AND dribble--I never seen a baby dribble like this one."
She
wiped his
mouth and nose with a corner of her skirt. "Some babies
get
their
teeth without you knowing it," she went on, "and some take
on this
way all
the time. I once heard of a baby that died, and they found all
it's teeth
in its stomach."

The Man
got up, unhooked his cloak from the back of the door, and flung it
round him.

"There's
another coming," said he.

"What--a
tooth!" exclaimed the Child, startled for the first time that
morning
out of her dreadful heaviness, and thrusting her finger into the
baby's
mouth.

"No,"
he said grimly, "another baby. Now, get on with your work;
it's time
the others
got up for school." She stood a moment quite silently,
hearing
his heavy
steps on the stone passage, then the gravel walk, and finally the
slam of
the front gate.

"Another
baby! Hasn't she finished having them YET?" thought the
Child.
"Two
babies getting eye teeth--two babies to get up for in the night--two
babies to
carry about and wash their little piggy clothes!" She
looked
with
horror at the one in her arms, who, seeming to understand the
contemptuous
loathing of her tired glance, doubled his fists, stiffened his
body, and
began violently screaming.

"Ts--ts--ts."
She laid him on the settle and went back to her floor-
washing.
He never ceased crying for a moment, but she got quite used to it
and kept
time with her broom. Oh, how tired she was! Oh, the heavy
broom
handle and
the burning spot just at the back of her neck that ached so, and
a funny
little fluttering feeling just at the back of her waistband, as
though
something were going to break.

The clock
struck six. She set the pan of milk in the oven, and went into
the next
room to wake and dress the three children. Anton and Hans lay
together
in attitudes of mutual amity which certainly never existed out of
their
sleeping hours. Lena was curled up, her knees under her chin,
only a
straight,
standing-up pigtail of hair showing above the bolster.

"Get
up," cried the Child, speaking in a voice of immense authority,
pulling
off the bedclothes and giving the boys sundry pokes and digs.
"I've
been calling you this last half-hour. It's late, and I'll tell
on
you if you
don't get dressed this minute."

Anton
awoke sufficiently to turn over and kick Hans on a tender part,
whereupon
Hans pulled Lena's pigtail until she shrieked for her mother.

"Oh,
do be quiet," whispered the Child. "Oh, do get up and
dress. You
know what
will happen. There--I'll help you."

But the
warning came too late. The Frau got out of bed, walked in a
determined
fashion into the kitchen, returning with a bundle of twigs in
her hand
fastened together with a strong cord. One by one she laid the
children
across her knee and severely beat them, expending a final burst of
energy on
the Child-Who-Was-Tired, then returned to bed, with a comfortable
sense of
her maternal duties in good working order for the day. Very
subdued,
the three allowed themselves to be dressed and washed by the
Child, who
even laced the boys' boots, having found through experience that
if left to
themselves they hopped about for at least five minutes to find a
comfortable
ledge for their foot, and then spat on their hands and broke
the
bootlaces.

While she
gave them their breakfast they became uproarious, and the baby
would not
cease crying. When she filled the tin kettle with milk, tied on
the rubber
teat, and, first moistening it herself, tried with little
coaxing
words to make him drink, he threw the bottle on to the floor and
trembled
all over.

"Eye
teeth!" shouted Hans, hitting Anton over the head with his empty
cup;
"he's
getting the evil-eye teeth, I should say."

"Smarty!"
retorted Lena, poking out her tongue at him, and then, when he
promptly
did the same, crying at the top of her voice, "Mother, Hans is
making
faces at me!"

"That's
right," said Hans; "go on howling, and when you're in bed
to-night
I'll wait
till you're asleep, and then I'll creep over and take a little
tiny piece
of your arm and twist and twist it until--" He leant over
the
table
making the most horrible faces at Lena, not noticing that Anton was
standing
behind his chair until the little boy bent over and spat on his
brother's
shaven head.

"Oh,
weh! oh, weh!"

The
Child-Who-Was-Tired pushed and pulled them apart, muffled them into
their
coats, and drove them out of the house.

"Hurry,
hurry! the second bell's rung," she urged, knowing perfectly
well
she was
telling a story, and rather exulting in the fact. She washed up
the
breakfast things, then went down to the cellar to look out the
potatoes
and
beetroot.

Such a
funny, cold place the coal cellar! With potatoes banked on one
corner,
beetroot in an old candle box, two tubs of sauerkraut, and a
twisted
mass of dahlia roots--that looked as real as though they were
fighting
one another, thought the Child.

She
gathered the potatoes into her skirt, choosing big ones with few eyes
because
they were easier to peel, and bending over the dull heap in the
silent
cellar, she began to nod.

"Here,
you, what are you doing down there?" cried the Frau, from the
top of
the
stairs. "The baby's fallen off the settle, and got a bump
as big as an
egg over
his eye. Come up here, and I'll teach you!"

"It
wasn't me--it wasn't me!" screamed the Child, beaten from one
side of
the hall
to the other, so that the potatoes and beetroot rolled out of her
skirt.

The Frau
seemed to be as big as a giant, and there was a certain heaviness
in all her
movements that was terrifying to anyone so small.

"Sit
in the corner, and peel and wash the vegetables, and keep the baby
quiet
while I do the washing."

Whimpering
she obeyed, but as to keeping the baby quiet, that was
impossible.
His face was hot, little beads of sweat stood all over his
head, and
he stiffened his body and cried. She held him on her knees,
with
a pan of
cold water beside her for the cleaned vegetables and the "ducks'
bucket"
for the peelings.

"Ts--ts--ts!"
she crooned, scraping and boring; "there's going to be
another
soon, and you can't both keep on crying. Why don't you go to
sleep,
baby? I would, if I were you. I'll tell you a dream.
Once upon a
time there
was a little white road--"

She shook
back her head, a great lump ached in her throat and then the
tears ran
down her face on to the vegetables.

"That's
no good," said the Child, shaking them away. "Just
stop crying
until I've
finished this, baby, and I'll walk you up and down."

But by
that time she had to peg out the washing for the Frau. A wind
had
sprung
up. Standing on tiptoe in the yard, she almost felt she would
be
blown
away. There was a bad smell coming from the ducks' coop, which
was
half full
of manure water, but away in the meadow she saw the grass blowing
like
little green hairs. And she remembered having heard of a child
who
had once
played for a whole day in just such a meadow with real sausages
and beer
for her dinner--and not a little bit of tiredness. Who had told
her that
story? She could not remember, and yet it was so plain.

The wet
clothes flapped in her face as she pegged them; danced and jigged
on the
line, bulged out and twisted. She walked back to the house with
lagging
steps, looking longingly at the grass in the meadow.

"What
must I do now, please?" she said.

"Make
the beds and hang the baby's mattress out of the window, then get the
wagon and
take him for a little walk along the road. In front of the
house,
mind--where I can see you. Don't stand there, gaping!
Then come in
when I
call you and help me cut up the salad."

When she
had made the beds the Child stood and looked at them. Gently
she
stroked
the pillow with her hand, and then, just for one moment, let her
head rest
there. Again the smarting lump in her throat, the stupid tears
that fell
and kept on falling as she dressed the baby and dragged the
little
wagon up and down the road.

A man
passed, driving a bullock wagon. He wore a long, queer feather
in
his hat,
and whistled as he passed. Two girls with bundles on their
shoulders
came walking out of the village--one wore a red handkerchief
about her
head and one a blue. They were laughing and holding each other
by the
hand. Then the sun pushed by a heavy fold of grey cloud and
spread
a warm
yellow light over everything.

"Perhaps,"
thought the Child-Who-Was-Tired, "if I walked far enough up this
road I
might come to a little white one, with tall black trees on either
side--a
little road--"

"Salad,
salad!" cried the Frau's voice from the house.

Soon the
children came home from school, dinner was eaten, the Man took the
Frau's
share of pudding as well as his own, and the three children seemed
to smear
themselves all over with whatever they ate. Then more
dish-washing
and more cleaning and baby-minding. So the afternoon dragged
coldly
through.

Old Frau
Grathwohl came in with a fresh piece of pig's flesh for the Frau,
and the
Child listened to them gossiping together.

"Frau
Manda went on her 'journey to Rome' last night, and brought back a
daughter.
How are you feeling?"

"I
was sick twice this morning," said the Frau. "My
insides are all
twisted up
with having children too quickly."

"I
see you've got a new help," commented old Mother Grathwohl.

"Oh,
dear Lord"--the Frau lowered her voice--"don't you know
her? She's
the
free-born one--daughter of the waitress at the railway station.
They
found her
mother trying to squeeze her head in the wash-hand jug, and the
child's
half silly."

"Ts--ts--ts!"
whispered the "free-born" one to the baby.

As the day
drew in the Child-Who-Was-Tired did not know how to fight her
sleepiness
any longer. She was afraid to sit down or stand still. As
she
sat at
supper the Man and the Frau seemed to swell to an immense size as
she
watched them, and then become smaller than dolls, with little voices
that
seemed to come from outside the window. Looking at the baby, it
suddenly
had two heads, and then no head. Even his crying made her feel
worse.
When she thought of the nearness of bedtime she shook all over with
excited
joy. But as eight o'clock approached there was the sound of
wheels
on the
road, and presently in came a party of friends to spend the evening.

Then it
was:

"Put
on the coffee."

"Bring
me the sugar tin."

"Carry
the chairs out of the bedroom."

"Set
the table."

And,
finally, the Frau sent her into the next room to keep the baby quiet.

There was
a little piece of candle burning in the enamel bracket. As she
walked up
and down she saw her great big shadow on the wall like a grown-up
person
with a grown-up baby. Whatever would it look like when she
carried
two babies
so!

"Ts--ts--ts!"
Once upon a time she was walking along a little white road,
with oh!
such great big black trees on either side."

"Here
you!" called the Frau's voice, "bring me my new jacket from
behind
the
door." And as she took it into the warm room one of the
women said,
"She
looks like an owl. Such children are seldom right in their
heads."

"Why
don't you keep that baby quiet?" said the Man, who had just
drunk
enough
beer to make him feel very brave and master of his house.

"If
you don't keep that baby quiet you'll know why later on."

They burst
out laughing as she stumbled back into the bedroom.

"I
don't believe Holy Mary could keep him quiet," she murmured.
"Did Jesus
cry like
this when He was little? If I was not so tired perhaps I could
do
it; but
the baby just knows that I want to go to sleep. And there is
going
to be
another one."

She flung
the baby on the bed, and stood looking at him with terror.

From the
next room there came the jingle of glasses and the warm sound of
laughter.

And she
suddenly had a beautiful marvellous idea.

She
laughed for the first time that day, and clapped her hands.

"Ts--ts--ts!"
she said, "lie there, silly one; you WILL go to sleep.
You'll not
cry any more or wake up in the night. Funny, little, ugly
baby."

He opened
his eyes, and shrieked loudly at the sight of the
Child-Who-Was-Tired.
From the next room she heard the Frau call out to
her.

"One
moment--he is almost asleep," she cried.

And then
gently, smiling, on tiptoe, she brought the pink bolster from the
Frau's bed
and covered the baby's face with it, pressed with all her might
as he
struggled, "like a duck with its head off, wriggling", she
thought.

She heaved
a long sigh, then fell back on to the floor, and was walking
along a
little white road with tall black trees on either side, a little
road that
led to nowhere, and where nobody walked at all--nobody at all.

11.
THE ADVANCED LADY.

"Do
you think we might ask her to come with us," said Fraulein Elsa,
retying
her pink sash ribbon before my mirror. "You know, although
she is
so
intellectual, I cannot help feeling convinced that she has some
secret
sorrow.
And Lisa told me this morning, as she was turning out my room,
that she
remains hours and hours by herself, writing; in fact Lisa says she
is writing
a book! I suppose that is why she never cares to mingle with
us, and
has so little time for her husband and the child."

"Well,
YOU ask her," said I. "I have never spoken to the
lady."

Elsa
blushed faintly. "I have only spoken to her once,"
she confessed. "I
took her a
bunch of wild flowers, to her room, and she came to the door in
a white
gown, with her hair loose. Never shall I forget that moment.
She
just took
the flowers, and I heard her--because the door was not quite
properly
shut--I heard her, as I walked down the passage, saying 'Purity,
fragrance,
the fragrance of purity and the purity of fragrance!' It was
wonderful!"

At that
moment Frau Kellermann knocked at the door.

"Are
you ready?" she said, coming into the room and nodding to us
very
genially.
"The gentlemen are waiting on the steps, and I have asked the
Advanced
Lady to come with us."

"Na,
how extraordinary!" cried Elsa. "But this moment the
gnadige Frau and
I were
debating whether--"

"Yes,
I met her coming out of her room and she said she was charmed with
the idea.
Like all of us, she has never been to Schlingen. She is
downstairs
now, talking to Herr Erchardt. I think we shall have a
delightful
afternoon."

"Is
Fritzi waiting too?" asked Elsa.

"Of
course he is, dear child--as impatient as a hungry man listening for
the dinner
bell. Run along!"

Elsa ran,
and Frau Kellermann smiled at me significantly. In the past she
and I had
seldom spoken to each other, owing to the fact that her "one
remaining
joy"--her charming little Karl--had never succeeded in kindling
into flame
those sparks of maternity which are supposed to glow in great
numbers
upon the altar of every respectable female heart; but, in view of a
premeditated
journey together, we became delightfully cordial.

"For
us," she said, "there will be a double joy. We shall
be able to watch
the
happiness of these two dear children, Elsa and Fritz. They only
received
the letters of blessing from their parents yesterday morning.
It
is a very
strange thing, but whenever I am in the company of newly-engaged
couples I
blossom. Newly-engaged couples, mothers with first babies, and
normal
deathbeds have precisely the same effect on me. Shall we join
the
others?"

I was
longing to ask her why normal deathbeds should cause anyone to burst
into
flower, and said, "Yes, do let us."

We were
greeted by the little party of "cure guests" on the pension
steps,
with those
cries of joy and excitement which herald so pleasantly the
mildest
German excursion. Herr Erchardt and I had not met before that
day,
so, in
accordance with strict pension custom, we asked each other how long
we had
slept during the night, had we dreamed agreeably, what time we had
got up,
was the coffee fresh when we had appeared at breakfast, and how had
we passed
the morning. Having toiled up these stairs of almost national
politeness
we landed, triumphant and smiling, and paused to recover breath.

"And
now," said Herr Erchardt, "I have a pleasure in store for
you. The
Frau
Professor is going to be one of us for the afternoon. Yes,"
nodding
graciously
to the Advanced Lady. "Allow me to introduce you to each
other."

We bowed
very formally, and looked each other over with that eye which is
known as
"eagle" but is far more the property of the female than
that most
unoffending
of birds. "I think you are English?" she said.
I acknowledged
the fact.
"I am reading a great many English books just now--rather, I am
studying
them."

"Nu,"
cried Herr Erchardt. "Fancy that! What a bond
already! I have made
up my mind
to know Shakespeare in his mother tongue before I die, but that
you, Frau
Professor, should be already immersed in those wells of English
thought!"

"From
what I have read," she said, "I do not think they are very
deep
wells."

He nodded
sympathetically.

"No,"
he answered, "so I have heard...But do not let us embitter our
excursion
for our little English friend. We will speak of this another
time."

"Nu,
are we ready?" cried Fritz, who stood, supporting Elsa's elbow
in his
hand, at
the foot of the steps. It was immediately discovered that Karl
was lost.

"Ka--rl,
Karl--chen!" we cried. No response.

"But
he was here one moment ago," said Herr Langen, a tired, pale
youth,
who was
recovering from a nervous breakdown due to much philosophy and
little
nourishment. "He was sitting here, picking out the works
of his
watch with
a hairpin!"

Frau
Kellermann rounded on him. "Do you mean to say, my dear
Herr Langen,
you did
not stop the child!"

"No,"
said Herr Langen; "I've tried stopping him before now."

"Da,
that child has such energy; never is his brain at peace. If he
is not
doing one
thing, he is doing another!"

"Perhaps
he has started on the dining-room clock now," suggested Herr
Langen,
abominably hopeful.

The
Advanced Lady suggested that we should go without him. "I
never take
my little
daughter for walks," she said. "I have accustomed her
to sitting
quietly in
my bedroom from the time I go out until I return!"

"There
he is--there he is," piped Elsa, and Karl was observed
slithering
down a
chestnut-tree, very much the worse for twigs.

"I've
been listening to what you said about me, mumma," he confessed
while
Frau
Kellermann brushed him down. "It was not true about the
watch. I was
only
looking at it, and the little girl never stays in the bedroom.
She
told me
herself she always goes down to the kitchen, and--"

"Da,
that's enough!" said Frau Kellermann.

We marched
en masse along the station road. It was a very warm afternoon,
and
continuous parties of "cure guests", who were giving their
digestions a
quiet
airing in pension gardens, called after us, asked if we were going
for a
walk, and cried "Herr Gott--happy journey" with immense
ill-concealed
relish
when we mentioned Schlingen.

"But
that is eight kilometres," shouted one old man with a white
beard, who
leaned
against a fence, fanning himself with a yellow handkerchief.

"Seven
and a half," answered Herr Erchardt shortly.

"Eight,"
bellowed the sage.

"Seven
and a half!"

"Eight!"

"The
man is mad," said Herr Erchardt.

"Well,
please let him be mad in peace," said I, putting my hands over
my
ears.

"Such
ignorance must not be allowed to go uncontradicted," said he,
and
turning
his back on us, too exhausted to cry out any longer, he held up
seven and
a half fingers.

"Eight!"
thundered the greybeard, with pristine freshness.

We felt
very sobered, and did not recover until we reached a white signpost
which
entreated us to leave the road and walk through the field path--
without
trampling down more of the grass than was necessary. Being
interpreted,
it meant "single file", which was distressing for Elsa and
Fritz.
Karl, like a happy child, gambolled ahead, and cut down as many
flowers as
possible with the stick of his mother's parasol--followed the
three
others--then myself--and the lovers in the rear. And above the
conversation
of the advance party I had the privilege of hearing these
delicious
whispers.

Fritz:
"Do you love me?" Elsa: "Nu--yes."
Fritz passionately: "But how
much?"
To which Elsa never replied--except with "How much do YOU love
ME?"

It grew so
confusing that I slipped in front of Frau Kellermann--and walked
in the
peaceful knowledge that she was blossoming and I was under no
obligation
to inform even my nearest and dearest as to the precise capacity
of my
affections. "What right have they to ask each other such
questions
the day
after letters of blessing have been received?" I reflected.
"What
right have
they even to question each other? Love which becomes engaged
and
married is a purely affirmative affair--they are usurping the
privileges
of their betters and wisers!"

The edges
of the field frilled over into an immense pine forest--very
pleasant
and cool it looked. Another signpost begged us to keep to the
broad path
for Schlingen and deposit waste paper and fruit peelings in wire
receptacles
attached to the benches for the purpose. We sat down on the
first
bench, and Karl with great curiosity explored the wire receptacle.

"I
love woods," said the Advanced Lady, smiling pitifully into the
air.
"In a
wood my hair already seems to stir and remember something of its
savage
origin."

"But
speaking literally," said Frau Kellermann, after an appreciative
pause,
"there is really nothing better than the air of pine-trees for
the
scalp."

"Oh,
Frau Kellermann, please don't break the spell," said Elsa.

The
Advanced Lady looked at her very sympathetically. "Have
you, too,
found the
magic heart of Nature?" she said.
That was
Herr Langen's cue. "Nature has no heart," said he,
very bitterly
and
readily, as people do who are over-philosophised and underfed.
"She
creates
that she may destroy. She eats that she may spew up and she
spews
up that
she may eat. That is why we, who are forced to eke out an
existence
at her trampling feet, consider the world mad, and realise the
deadly
vulgarity of production."

"Young
man," interrupted Herr Erchardt, "you have never lived and
you have
never
suffered!"

"Oh,
excuse me--how can you know?"

"I
know because you have told me, and there's an end of it. Come back to
this bench
in ten years' time and repeat those words to me," said Frau
Kellermann,
with an eye upon Fritz, who was engaged in counting Elsa's
fingers
with passionate fervour--"and bring with you your young wife,
Herr
Langen,
and watch, perhaps, your little child playing with--" She
turned
towards
Karl, who had rooted an old illustrated paper out of the receptacle
and was
spelling over an advertisement for the enlargement of Beautiful
Breasts.

The
sentence remained unfinished. We decided to move on. As
we plunged
more
deeply into the wood our spirits rose--reaching a point where they
burst into
song--on the part of the three men--"O Welt, wie bist du
wunderbar!"--the
lower part of which was piercingly sustained by Herr
Langen,
who attempted quite unsuccessfully to infuse satire into it in
accordance
with his--"world outlook". They strode ahead and left
us to
trail
after them--hot and happy.

"Now
is the opportunity," said Frau Kellermann. "Dear Frau
Professor, do
tell us a
little about your book."

"Ach,
how did you know I was writing one?" she cried playfully.

"Elsa,
here, had it from Lisa. And never before have I personally
known a
woman who
was writing a book. How do you manage to find enough to write
down?"

"That
is never the trouble," said the Advanced Lady--she took Elsa's
arm
and leaned
on it gently. "The trouble is to know where to stop.
My brain
has been a
hive for years, and about three months ago the pent-up waters
burst over
my soul, and since then I am writing all day until late into the
night,
still ever finding fresh inspirations and thoughts which beat
impatient
wings about my heart."

"Is
it a novel?" asked Elsa shyly.

"Of
course it is a novel," said I.

"How
can you be so positive?" said Frau Kellermann, eyeing me
severely.

"Because
nothing but a novel could produce an effect like that."

"Ach,
don't quarrel," said the Advanced Lady sweetly. "Yes,
it is a novel
--upon the
Modern Woman. For this seems to me the woman's hour. It
is
mysterious
and almost prophetic, it is the symbol of the true advanced
woman:
not one of those violent creatures who deny their sex and smother
their
frail wings under...under--"

"The
English tailor-made?" from Frau Kellermann.

"I
was not going to put it like that. Rather, under the lying garb
of
false
masculinity!"

"Such
a subtle distinction!" I murmured.

"Whom
then," asked Fraulein Elsa, looking adoringly at the Advanced
Lady--
"whom
then do you consider the true woman?"

"She
is the incarnation of comprehending Love!"

"But
my dear Frau Professor," protested Frau Kellermann, "you
must remember
that one
has so few opportunities for exhibiting Love within the family
circle
nowadays. One's husband is at business all day, and naturally
desires to
sleep when he returns home--one's children are out of the lap
and in at
the university before one can lavish anything at all upon them!"

"But
Love is not a question of lavishing," said the Advanced Lady.
"It is
the lamp
carried in the bosom touching with serene rays all the heights and
depths
of--"

"Darkest
Africa," I murmured flippantly.

She did
not hear.

"The
mistake we have made in the past--as a sex," said she, "is
in not
realising
that our gifts of giving are for the whole world--we are the glad
sacrifice
of ourselves!"

"Oh!"
cried Elsa rapturously, and almost bursting into gifts as she
breathed--"how
I know that! You know ever since Fritz and I have been
engaged, I
share the desire to give to everybody, to share everything!"

"How
extremely dangerous," said I.

"It
is only the beauty of danger, or the danger of beauty" said the
Advanced
Lady--"and there you have the ideal of my book--that woman is
nothing
but a gift."

I smiled
at her very sweetly. "Do you know," I said, "I,
too, would like
to write a
book, on the advisability of caring for daughters, and taking
them for
airings and keeping them out of kitchens!"

I think
the masculine element must have felt these angry vibrations:
they
ceased
from singing, and together we climbed out of the wood, to see
Schlingen
below us, tucked in a circle of hills, the white houses shining
in the
sunlight, "for all the world like eggs in a bird's nest",
as Herr
Erchardt
declared. We descended upon Schlingen and demanded sour milk
with
fresh
cream and bread at the Inn of the Golden Stag, a most friendly place,
with
tables in a rose-garden where hens and chickens ran riot--even
flopping
upon the disused tables and pecking at the red checks on the
cloths.
We broke the bread into the bowls, added the cream, and stirred it
round with
flat wooden spoons, the landlord and his wife standing by.

"Splendid
weather!" said Herr Erchardt, waving his spoon at the landlord,
who
shrugged his shoulders.

"What!
you don't call it splendid!"

"As
you please," said the landlord, obviously scorning us.

"Such
a beautiful walk," said Fraulein Elsa, making a free gift of her
most
charming
smile to the landlady.

"I
never walk," said the landlady; "when I go to Mindelbau my
man drives
me--I've
more important things to do with my legs than walk them through
the dust!"

"I
like these people," confessed Herr Langen to me. "I
like them very,
very
much. I think I shall take a room here for the whole summer."

"Why?"

"Oh,
because they live close to the earth, and therefore despise it."

He pushed
away his bowl of sour milk and lit a cigarette. We ate, solidly
and
seriously, until those seven and a half kilometres to Mindelbau
stretched
before us like an eternity. Even Karl's activity became so full
fed that
he lay on the ground and removed his leather waistbelt. Elsa
suddenly
leaned over to Fritz and whispered, who on hearing her to the end
and asking
her if she loved him, got up and made a little speech.

"We--we
wish to celebrate our betrothal by--by--asking you all to drive
back with
us in the landlord's cart--if--it will hold us!"

"Oh,
what a beautiful, noble idea!" said Frau Kellermann, heaving a
sigh of
relief
that audibly burst two hooks.

"It
is my little gift," said Elsa to the Advanced Lady, who by
virtue of
three
portions almost wept tears of gratitude.

Squeezed
into the peasant cart and driven by the landlord, who showed his
contempt
for mother earth by spitting savagely every now and again, we
jolted
home again, and the nearer we came to Mindelbau the more we loved it
and one
another.

"We
must have many excursions like this," said Herr Erchardt to me,
"for
one surely
gets to know a person in the simple surroundings of the open
air--one
SHARES the same joys--one feels friendship. What is it your
Shakespeare
says? One moment, I have it. The friends thou hast, and
their
adoption
tried--grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel!"

"But,"
said I, feeling very friendly towards him, "the bother about my
soul
is that it
refuses to grapple anybody at all--and I am sure that the dead
weight of
a friend whose adoption it had tried would kill it immediately.
Never yet
has it shown the slightest sign of a hoop!"

He bumped
against my knees and excused himself and the cart.

"My
dear little lady, you must not take the quotation literally.
Naturally,
one is not physically conscious of the hoops; but hoops there
are in the
soul of him or her who loves his fellow-men...Take this
afternoon,
for instance. How did we start out? As strangers you
might
almost
say, and yet--all of us--how have we come home?"

"In a
cart," said the only remaining joy, who sat upon his mother's
lap and
felt sick.

We skirted
the field that we had passed through, going round by the
cemetery.
Herr Langen leaned over the edge of the seat and greeted the
graves.
He was sitting next to the Advanced Lady--inside the shelter of
her
shoulder. I heard her murmur: "You look like a
little boy with your
hair
blowing about in the wind." Herr Langen, slightly less
bitter--
watched
the last graves disappear. And I heard her murmur: "Why
are you
so sad? I
too am very sad sometimes--but--you look young enough for me to
dare to
say this--I--too--know of much joy!"

"What
do you know?" said he.

I leaned
over and touched the Advanced Lady's hand. "Hasn't it been
a nice
afternoon?"
I said questioningly. "But you know, that theory of yours
about
women and Love--it's as old as the hills--oh, older!"

From the
road a sudden shout of triumph. Yes, there he was again--white
beard,
silk handkerchief and undaunted enthusiasm.

"What
did I say? Eight kilometres--it is!"

"Seven
and a half!" shrieked Herr Erchardt.

"Why,
then, do you return in carts? Eight kilometres it must be."

Herr
Erchardt made a cup of his hands and stood up in the jolting cart
while Frau
Kellermann clung to his knees. "Seven and a half!"

"Ignorance
must not go uncontradicted!" I said to the Advanced Lady.

12.
THE SWING OF THE PENDULUM.

The
landlady knocked at the door.

"Come
in," said Viola.

"There
is a letter for you," said the landlady, "a special
letter"--she
held the
green envelope in a corner of her dingy apron.

"Thanks."
Viola, kneeling on the floor, poking at the little dusty stove,
stretched
out her hand. "Any answer?"

"No;
the messenger has gone."

"Oh,
all right!" She did not look the landlady in the face; she
was
ashamed of
not having paid her rent, and wondered grimly, without any hope,
if the
woman would begin to bluster again.

"About
this money owing to me--" said the landlady.

"Oh,
the Lord--off she goes!" thought Viola, turning her back on the
woman
and making
a grimace at the stove.

"It's
settle--or it's go!" The landlady raised her voice; she
began to
bawl.
"I'm a landlady, I am, and a respectable woman, I'll have you
know.
I'll have
no lice in my house, sneaking their way into the furniture and
eating up
everything. It's cash--or out you go before twelve o'clock to-
morrow."

Viola felt
rather than saw the woman's gesture. She shot out her arm in a
stupid
helpless way, as though a dirty pigeon had suddenly flown at her
face.
"Filthy old beast! Ugh! And the smell of her--like
stale cheese
and damp
washing."

"Very
well!" she answered shortly; "it's cash down or I leave
to-morrow.
All
right: don't shout."

It was
extraordinary--always before this woman came near her she trembled
in her
shoes--even the sound of those flat feet stumping up the stairs made
her feel
sick, but once they were face to face she felt immensely calm and
indifferent,
and could not understand why she even worried about money, nor
why she
sneaked out of the house on tiptoe, not even daring to shut the
door after
her in case the landlady should hear and shout something
terrible,
nor why she spent nights pacing up and down her room--drawing up
sharply
before the mirror and saying to a tragic reflection: "Money,
money,
money!" When she was alone her poverty was like a huge
dream-mountain
on which her feet were fast rooted--aching with the ache of
the size
of the thing--but if it came to definite action, with no time for
imaginings,
her dream-mountain dwindled into a beastly "hold-your-nose"
affair, to
be passed as quickly as possible, with anger and a strong sense
of
superiority.

The
landlady bounced out of the room, banging the door, so that it shook
and
rattled as though it had listened to the conversation and fully
sympathised
with the old hag.

Squatting
on her heels, Viola opened the letter. It was from Casimir:

"I
shall be with you at three o'clock this afternoon--and must be off
again
this
evening. All news when we meet. I hope you are happier
than I.--
CASIMIR."

"Huh!
how kind!" she sneered; "how condescending. Too good
of you,
really!"
She sprang to her feet, crumbling the letter in her hands. "And
how are
you to know that I shall stick here awaiting your pleasure until
three
o'clock this afternoon?" But she knew she would; her rage
was only
half
sincere. She longed to see Casimir, for she was confident that
this
time she
would make him understand the situation..."For, as it is, it's
intolerable--intolerable!"
she muttered.

It was ten
o'clock in the morning of a grey day curiously lighted by pale
flashes of
sunshine. Searched by these flashes her room looked tumbled and
grimed.
She pulled down the window-blinds--but they gave a persistent,
whitish
glare which was just as bad. The only thing of life in the room
was a jar
of hyacinths given her by the landlady's daughter: it stood on
the table
exuding a sickly perfume from its plump petals; there were even
rich buds
unfolding, and the leaves shone like oil.

Viola went
over to the washstand, poured some water into the enamel basin,
and
sponged her face and neck. She dipped her face into the water,
opened
her eyes,
and shook her head from side to side--it was exhilarating. She
did it
three times. "I suppose I could drown myself if I stayed
under long
enough,"
she thought. "I wonder how long it takes to become
unconscious?...Often
read of women drowning in a bucket. I wonder if any
air enters
by the ears--if the basin would have to be as deep as a bucket?"
She
experimented--gripped the washstand with both hands and slowly sank
her
head into
the water, when again there was a knock on the door. Not the
landlady
this time--it must be Casimir. With her face and hair dripping,
with her
petticoat bodice unbuttoned, she ran and opened it.

A strange
man stood against the lintel--seeing her, he opened his eyes very
wide and
smiled delightfully. "Excuse me--does Fraulein Schafer
live
here?"

"No;
never heard of her." His smile was so infectious, she
wanted to smile
too--and
the water had made her feel so fresh and rosy.

The
strange man appeared overwhelmed with astonishment. "She
doesn't?" he
cried.
"She is out, you mean!"

"No,
she's not living here," answered Viola.

"But--pardon--one
moment." He moved from the door lintel, standing
squarely
in front of her. He unbuttoned his greatcoat and drew a slip of
paper from
the breast pocket, smoothing it in his gloved fingers before
handing it
to her.

"Yes,
that's the address, right enough, but there must be a mistake in the
number.
So many lodging-houses in this street, you know, and so big."

Drops of
water fell from her hair on to the paper. She burst out
laughing.
"Oh,
HOW dreadful I must look--one moment!" She ran back to the
washstand
and caught
up a towel. The door was still open...After all, there was
nothing
more to be said. Why on earth had she asked him to wait a
moment?
She folded
the towel round her shoulders, and returned to the door,
suddenly
grave. "I'm sorry; I know no such name" in a sharp
voice.

Said the
strange man: "Sorry, too. Have you been living here
long?"

"Er--yes--a
long time." She began to close the door slowly.

"Well--good-morning,
thanks so much. Hope I haven't been a bother."

"Good-morning."

She heard
him walk down the passage and then pause--lighting a cigarette.
Yes--a
faint scent of delicious cigarette smoke penetrated her room.
She
sniffed at
it, smiling again. Well, that had been a fascinating interlude!
He looked
so amazingly happy: his heavy clothes and big buttoned gloves;
his
beautifully brushed hair...and that smile..."Jolly" was the
word--just
a well-fed
boy with the world for his playground. People like that did one
good--one
felt "made over" at the sight of them. SANE they
were--so sane
and
solid. You could depend on them never having one mad impulse
from the
day they
were born until the day they died. And Life was in league with
them--jumped
them on her knee--quite rightly, too. At that moment she
noticed
Casimir's letter, crumpled up on the floor--the smile faded.
Staring at
the letter she began braiding her hair--a dull feeling of rage
crept
through her--she seemed to be braiding it into her brain, and binding
it,
tightly, above her head...Of course that had been the mistake all
along.
What had? Oh, Casimir's frightful seriousness. If she had
been
happy when
they first met she never would have looked at him--but they had
been like
two patients in the same hospital ward--each finding comfort in
the
sickness of the other--sweet foundation for a love episode!
Misfortune
had
knocked their heads together: they had looked at each other,
stunned
with the
conflict and sympathised..."I wish I could step outside the
whole
affair and
just judge it--then I'd find a way out. I certainly was in love
with
Casimir...Oh, be sincere for once." She flopped down on
the bed and
hid her
face in the pillow. "I was not in love. I wanted
somebody to look
after
me--and keep me until my work began to sell--and he kept bothers with
other men
away. And what would have happened if he hadn't come along?
I
would have
spent my wretched little pittance, and then--Yes, that was what
decided
me, thinking about that 'then.' He was the only solution.
And I
believed
in him then. I thought his work had only to be recognised once,
and he'd
roll in wealth. I thought perhaps we might be poor for a
month--
but he
said, if only he could have me, the stimulus...Funny, if it wasn't
so damned
tragic! Exactly the contrary has happened--he hasn't had a
thing
published
for months--neither have I--but then I didn't expect to. Yes,
the truth
is, I'm hard and bitter, and I have neither faith nor love for
unsuccessful
men. I always end by despising them as I despise Casimir.
I
suppose
it's the savage pride of the female who likes to think the man to
whom she
has given herself must be a very great chief indeed. But to
stew
in this
disgusting house while Casimir scours the land in the hope of
finding
one editorial open door--it's humiliating. It's changed my
whole
nature.
I wasn't born for poverty--I only flower among really jolly
people,
and people who never are worried."

The figure
of the strange man rose before her--would not be dismissed.
"That
was the man for me, after all is said and done--a man without a care
--who'd
give me everything I want and with whom I'd always feel that sense
of life
and of being in touch with the world. I never wanted to
fight--it
was thrust
on me. Really, there's a fount of happiness in me, that is
drying up,
little by little, in this hateful existence. I'll be dead if
this goes
on--and"--she stirred in the bed and flung out her arms--"I
want
passion,
and love, and adventure--I yearn for them. Why should I stay
here
and
rot?--I am rotting!" she cried, comforting herself with the
sound of
her
breaking voice. "But if I tell Casimir all this when he
comes this
afternoon,
and he says, 'Go'--as he certainly will--that's another thing I
loathe
about him--he's under my thumb--what should I do then--where should
I go to?"
There was nowhere. "I don't want to work--or carve out my
own
path.
I want ease and any amount of nursing in the lap of luxury.
There
is only
one thing I'm fitted for, and that is to be a great courtesan."
But she
did not know how to go about it. She was frightened to go into
the
streets--she
heard of such awful things happening to those women--men with
diseases--or
men who didn't pay--besides, the idea of a strange man every
night--no,
that was out of the question. "If I'd the clothes I would
go to
a really
good hotel and find some wealthy man...like the strange man this
morning.
He would be ideal. Oh, if I only had his address--I am sure I
would
fascinate him. I'd keep him laughing all day--I'd make him give
me
unlimited
money..." At the thought she grew warm and soft. She
began to
dream of a
wonderful house, and of presses full of clothes and of perfumes.
She saw
herself stepping into carriages--looking at the strange man with a
mysterious,
voluptuous glance--she practised the glance, lying on the bed--
and never
another worry, just drugged with happiness. That was the life
for her.
Well, the thing to do was to let Casimir go on his wild-goose
chase that
evening, and while he was away--What! Also--please to remember
--there
was the rent to be paid before twelve next morning, and she hadn't
the money
for a square meal. At the thought of food she felt a sharp
twinge in
her stomach, a sensation as though there were a hand in her
stomach,
squeezing it dry. She was terribly hungry--all Casimir's
fault--
and that
man had lived on the fat of the land ever since he was born. He
looked as
though he could order a magnificent dinner. Oh, why hadn't she
played her
cards better?--he'd been sent by Providence--and she'd snubbed
him.
"If I had that time over again, I'd be safe by now."
And instead of
the
ordinary man who had spoken with her at the door her mind created a
brilliant,
laughing image, who would treat her like a queen..."There's only
one thing
I could not stand--that he should be coarse or vulgar. Well, he
wasn't--he
was obviously a man of the world, and the way he apologised...I
have
enough faith in my own power and beauty to know I could make a man
treat me
just as I wanted to be treated."...It floated into her dreams--
that sweet
scent of cigarette smoke. And then she remembered that she had
heard
nobody go down the stone stairs. Was it possible that the
strange
man was
still there?...The thought was too absurd--Life didn't play tricks
like
that--and yet--she was quite conscious of his nearness. Very
quietly
she got
up, unhooked from the back of the door a long white gown, buttoned
it
on--smiling slyly. She did not know what was going to happen.
She only
thought:
"Oh, what fun!" and that they were playing a delicious
game--this
strange
man and she. Very gently she turned the door-handle, screwing
up
her face
and biting her lip as the lock snapped back. Of course, there
he
was--leaning
against the banister rail. He wheeled round as she slipped
into the
passage.

"Da,"
she muttered, folding her gown tightly around her, "I must go
downstairs
and fetch some wood. Brr! the cold!"

"There
isn't any wood," volunteered the strange man. She gave a
little cry
of
astonishment, and then tossed her head.

"You
again," she said scornfully, conscious the while of his merry
eye, and
the fresh,
strong smell of his healthy body.

"The
landlady shouted out there was no wood left. I just saw her go
out to
buy some."

"Story--story!"
she longed to cry. He came quite close to her, stood over
her and
whispered:

"Aren't
you going to ask me to finish my cigarette in your room?"

She
nodded. "You may if you want to!"

In that
moment together in the passage a miracle had happened. Her room
was quite
changed--it was full of sweet light and the scent of hyacinth
flowers.
Even the furniture appeared different--exciting. Quick as a
flash she
remembered childish parties when they had played charades, and
one side
had left the room and come in again to act a word--just what she
was doing
now. The strange man went over to the stove and sat down in her
arm-chair.
She did not want him to talk or come near her--it was enough to
see him in
the room, so secure and happy. How hungry she had been for the
nearness
of someone like that--who knew nothing at all about her--and made
no
demands--but just lived. Viola ran over to the table and put
her arms
round the
jar of hyacinths.

"Beautiful!
Beautiful!" she cried--burying her head in the flowers--and
sniffing
greedily at the scent. Over the leaves she looked at the man
and
laughed.

"You
are a funny little thing," said he lazily.

"Why?
Because I love flowers?"

"I'd
far rather you loved other things," said the strange man
slowly. She
broke off
a little pink petal and smiled at it.

"Let
me send you some flowers," said the strange man. "I'll
send you a
roomful if
you'd like them."

His voice
frightened her slightly. "Oh no, thanks--this one is quite
enough for
me."

"No,
it isn't"--in a teasing voice.

"What
a stupid remark!" thought Viola, and looking at him again he did
not
seem quite
so jolly. She noticed that his eyes were set too closely
together--and
they were too small. Horrible thought, that he should prove
stupid.

"What
do you do all day?" she asked hastily.

"Nothing."

"Nothing
at all?"

"Why
should I do anything?"

"Oh,
don't imagine for one moment that I condemn such wisdom--only it
sounds too
good to be true!"

"How
about to-morrow?" he suggested. "Suppose you have
lunch with me to-
morrow and
I take you driving."

After
all--this was just a game. "Yes, I'm not busy to-morrow,"
she said.

A little
pause--then the strange man patted his leg. "Why don't you
come
and sit
down?" he said.

She
pretended not to see and swung on to the table. "Oh, I'm
all right
here."

"No,
you're not"--again the teasing voice. "Come and sit
on my knee."

"Oh
no," said Viola very heartily, suddenly busy with her hair.

"Why
not?"

"I
don't want to."

"Oh,
come along"--impatiently.

She shook
her head from side to side. "I wouldn't dream of such a
thing."

At that he
got up and came over to her. "Funny little puss cat!"
He put
up one
hand to touch her hair.

"Don't,"
she said--and slipped off the table. "I--I think it's time
you
went
now." She was quite frightened now--thinking only:
"This man must be
got rid of
as quickly as possible."

"Oh,
but you don't want me to go?"

"Yes,
I do--I'm very busy."

"Busy.
What does the pussy cat do all day?"

"Lots
and lots of things!" She wanted to push him out of the
room and slam
the door
on him--idiot--fool--cruel disappointment.

"What's
she frowning for?" he asked. "Is she worried about
anything?"
Suddenly
serious: "I say--you know, are you in any financial
difficulty?
Do you
want money? I'll give it to you if you like!"

"Money!
Steady on the brake--don't lose your head!"--so she spoke to
herself.

"I'll
give you two hundred marks if you'll kiss me."

"Oh,
boo! What a condition! And I don't want to kiss you--I
don't like
kissing.
Please go!"

"Yes--you
do!--yes, you do." He caught hold of her arms above the
elbows.
She
struggled, and was quite amazed to realise how angry she felt.

"Let
me go--immediately!" she cried--and he slipped one arm round her
body,
and drew
her towards him--like a bar of iron across her back--that arm.

"Leave
me alone! I tell you. Don't be mean! I didn't want this
to happen
when you
came into my room. How dare you?"

"Well,
kiss me and I'll go!"

It was too
idiotic--dodging that stupid, smiling face.

"I
won't kiss you!--you brute!--I won't!" Somehow she slipped
out of his
arms and
ran to the wall--stood back against it--breathing quickly.

"Get
out!" she stammered. "Go on now, clear out!"

At that
moment, when he was not touching her, she quite enjoyed herself.
She
thrilled at her own angry voice. "To think I should talk
to a man like
that!"
An angry flush spread over his face--his lips curled back, showing
his
teeth--just like a dog, thought Viola. He made a rush at her,
and held
her
against the wall--pressed upon her with all the weight of his body.
This time
she could not get free.

He did not
answer. With an expression of the most absurd determination he
pressed
ever more heavily upon her. He did not even look at her--but
rapped out
in a sharp voice: "Keep quiet--keep quiet."

"Gar--r!
Why are men so strong?" She began to cry. "Go
away--I don't
want you,
you dirty creature. I want to murder you. Oh, my God! if
I had
a knife."

"Don't
be silly--come and be good!" He dragged her towards the
bed.

"Do
you suppose I'm a light woman?" she snarled, and swooping over
she
fastened
her teeth in his glove.

"Ach!
don't do that--you are hurting me!"

She did
not let go, but her heart said, "Thank the Lord I thought of
this."

"Stop
this minute--you vixen--you bitch." He threw her away from
him. She
saw with
joy that his eyes were full of tears. "You've really hurt
me," he
said in a
choking voice.

"Of
course I have. I meant to. That's nothing to what I'll do
if you
touch me
again."

The
strange man picked up his hat. "No thanks," he said
grimly. "But I'll
not forget
this--I'll go to your landlady."

"Pooh!"
She shrugged her shoulders and laughed. "I'll tell her you
forced
your way
in here and tried to assault me. Who will she believe?--with
your
bitten
hand. You go and find your Schafers."

A
sensation of glorious, intoxicating happiness flooded Viola.
She rolled
her eyes
at him. "If you don't go away this moment I'll bite you
again,"
she said,
and the absurd words started her laughing. Even when the door
was
closed, hearing him descending the stairs, she laughed, and danced
about the
room.

What a
morning! Oh, chalk it up. That was her first fight, and
she'd won
--she'd
conquered that beast--all by herself. Her hands were still
trembling.
She pulled up the sleeve of her gown--great red marks on her
arms.
"My ribs will be blue. I'll be blue all over," she
reflected. "If
only that
beloved Casimir could have seen us." And the feeling of
rage and
disgust
against Casimir had totally disappeared. How could the poor
darling
help not having any money? It was her fault as much as his, and
he, just
like her, was apart from the world, fighting it, just as she had
done.
If only three o'clock would come. She saw herself running
towards
him and
putting her arms round his neck. "My blessed one! Of
course we
are bound
to win. Do you love me still? Oh, I have been horrible
lately."

13.
A BLAZE.

"Max,
you silly devil, you'll break your neck if you go careering down the
slide that
way. Drop it, and come to the Club House with me and get some
coffee."

"I've
had enough for to-day. I'm damp all through. There, give
us a
cigarette,
Victor, old man. When are you going home?"

"Not
for another hour. It's fine this afternoon, and I'm getting
into
decent
shape. Look out, get off the track; here comes Fraulein Winkel.
Damned
elegant the way she manages her sleigh!"

"I'm
cold all through. That's the worst of this place--the
mists--it's a
damp
cold. Here, Forman, look after this sleigh--and stick it
somewhere so
that I can
get it without looking through a hundred and fifty others to-
morrow
morning."

They sat
down at a small round table near the stove and ordered coffee.
Victor
sprawled in his chair, patting his little brown dog Bobo and
looking,
half laughingly, at Max.

"What's
the matter, my dear? Isn't the world being nice and pretty?"

"I
want my coffee, and I want to put my feet into my pocket--they're
like
stones...Nothing
to eat, thanks--the cake is like underdone india-rubber
here."

Fuchs and
Wistuba came and sat at their table. Max half turned his back
and
stretched his feet out to the oven. The three other men all
began
talking at
once--of the weather--of the record slide--of the fine condition
of the
Wald See for skating.

Suddenly
Fuchs looked at Max, raised his eyebrows and nodded across to
Victor,
who shook his head.

"That's
the first time I've ever known him off colour," said Wistuba.
"I've
always imagined he had the better part of this world that could not
be taken
away from him. I think he says his prayers to the dear Lord for
having
spared him being taken home in seven basketsful to-night. It's
a
fool's
game to risk your all that way and leave the nation desolate."

"Dry
up," said Max. "You ought to be wheeled about on the
snow in a
perambulator."

"Oh,
no offence, I hope. Don't get nasty. How's your wife,
Victor?"

"She's
not at all well. She hurt her head coming down the slide with
Max
on
Sunday. I told her to stay at home all day."

"I'm
sorry. Are you other fellows going back to the town or stopping
on
here?"

Fuchs and
Victor said they were stopping--Max did not answer, but sat
motionless
while the men paid for their coffee and moved away. Victor came
back a
moment and put a hand on his shoulder.

"If
you're going right back, my dear, I wish you'd look Elsa up and tell
her I
won't be in till late. And feed with us to-night at Limpold,
will
you?
And take some hot grog when you get in."

"Thanks,
old fellow, I'm all right. Going back now."

He rose,
stretched himself, buttoned on his heavy coat and lighted another
cigarette.

From the
door Victor watched him plunging through the heavy snow--head
bent--hands
thrust in his pockets--he almost appeared to be running through
the heavy
snow towards the town.

...
Someone
came stamping up the stairs--paused at the door of her sitting-
room, and
knocked.

"Is
that you, Victor?" she called.

"No,
it is I... can I come in?"

"Of
course. Why, what a Santa Claus! Hang your coat on the
landing and
shake
yourself over the banisters. Had a good time?"

The room
was full of light and warmth. Elsa, in a white velvet tea-gown,
lay curled
up on the sofa--a book of fashions on her lap, a box of creams
beside
her.

The
curtains were not yet drawn before the windows and a blue light shone
through,
and the white boughs of the trees sprayed across.

A woman's
room--full of flowers and photographs and silk pillows--the floor
smothered
in rugs--an immense tiger-skin under the piano--just the head
protruding--sleepily
savage.

"It
was good enough," said Max. "Victor can't be in till
late. He told me
to come up
and tell you."

He started
walking up and down--tore off his gloves and flung them on the
table.

"Don't
do that, Max," said Elsa, "you get on my nerves. And
I've got a
headache
to-day; I'm feverish and quite flushed...Don't I look flushed?"

He paused
by the window and glanced at her a moment over his shoulder.

"No,"
he said; "I didn't notice it."

"Oh,
you haven't looked at me properly, and I've got a new tea-gown on,
too."
She pulled her skirts together and patted a little place on the
couch.

"Come
along and sit by me and tell me why you're being naughty."

But,
standing by the window, he suddenly flung his arm across his eyes.

"Oh,"
he said, "I can't. I'm done--I'm spent--I'm smashed."

Silence in
the room. The fashion-book fell to the floor with a quick
rustle of
leaves. Elsa sat forward, her hands clasped in her lap; a
strange
light shone in her eyes, a red colour stained her mouth.

Then she
spoke very quietly.

"Come
over here and explain yourself. I don't know what on earth you
are
talking
about."

"You
do know--you know far better than I. You've simply played with
Victor
in my
presence that I may feel worse. You've tormented me--you've led
me
on--offering
me everything and nothing at all. It's been a spider-and-fly
business
from first to last--and I've never for one moment been ignorant of
that--and
I've never for one moment been able to withstand it."

He turned
round deliberately.

"Do
you suppose that when you asked me to pin your flowers into your
evening
gown--when you let me come into your bedroom when Victor was out
while you
did your hair--when you pretended to be a baby and let me feed
you with
grapes--when you have run to me and searched in all my pockets for
a
cigarette--knowing perfectly well where they were kept--going through
every
pocket just the same--I knowing too--I keeping up the farce--do you
suppose
that now you have finally lighted your bonfire you are going to
find it a
peaceful and pleasant thing--you are going to prevent the whole
house from
burning?"

She
suddenly turned white and drew in her breath sharply.

"Don't
talk to me like that. You have no right to talk to me like
that. I
am another
man's wife."

"Hum,"
he sneered, throwing back his head, "that's rather late in the
game,
and that's
been your trump card all along. You only love Victor on the
cat-and-cream
principle--you a poor little starved kitten that he's given
everything
to, that he's carried in his breast, never dreaming that those
little
pink claws could tear out a man's heart."

She
stirred, looking at him with almost fear in her eyes.

"After
all"--unsteadily--"this is my room; I'll have to ask you to
go."

But he
stumbled towards her, knelt down by the couch, burying his head in
her lap,
clasping his arms round her waist.

Then his
muffled voice: "I feel like a savage. I want your
whole body. I
want to
carry you away to a cave and love you until I kill you--you can't
understand
how a man feels. I kill myself when I see you--I'm sick of my
own
strength that turns in upon itself, and dies, and rises new born like
a
Phoenix
out of the ashes of that horrible death. Love me just this
once,
tell me a
lie, SAY that you do--you are always lying."

Instead,
she pushed him away--frightened.

"Get
up," she said; "suppose the servant came in with the tea?"

"Oh,
ye gods!" He stumbled to his feet and stood staring down
at her.

"You're
rotten to the core and so am I. But you're heathenishly
beautiful."

The woman
went over to the piano--stood there--striking one note--her brows
drawn
together. Then she shrugged her shoulders and smiled.

"I'll
make a confession. Every word you have said is true. I
can't help
it.
I can't help seeking admiration any more than a cat can help going to
people to
be stroked. It's my nature. I'm born out of my time.
And yet,
you know,
I'm not a COMMON woman. I like men to adore me--to flatter me--
even to
make love to me--but I would never give myself to any man. I
would
never let
a man kiss me... even."

"It's
immeasurably worse--you've no legitimate excuse. Why, even a
prostitute
has a greater sense of generosity!"

"I
know," she said, "I know perfectly well--but I can't help
the way I'm
built...Are
you going?"

He put on
his gloves.

"Well,"
he said, "what's going to happen to us now?"

Again she
shrugged her shoulders.

"I
haven't the slightest idea. I never have--just let things
occur."

...
"All
alone?" cried Victor. "Has Max been here?"

"He
only stayed a moment, and wouldn't even have tea. I sent him
home to
change his
clothes...He was frightfully boring."